


Start Together

by birdbrains



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Begging, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Kink Discovery, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Rape Fantasy, Role Reversed Consent Play, Slut Shaming, Stone Top, Storytelling, Verbal Humiliation, tiny dom steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 18:15:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16581584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdbrains/pseuds/birdbrains
Summary: Bucky said, “A person doesn’t expect to be talking about things like this withyou, Steve. Well, you know I’m queer, you know I go with guys sometimes—and when I go with a guy I like for him to tell me what to do. Do you know what I mean? It excites me.”“I get the picture,” Steve said. He could already feel himself getting flustered—not because of the queer part, but because he never thought about that kind of thing at all.“I’m just checking,” Bucky said. “The point is, I shouldn’t have been thinking about you that way. I apologize.”“What?” Steve said.





	Start Together

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Let Your Arms Become Propellers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4218648) by [birdbrains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdbrains/pseuds/birdbrains). 



> A few things:
> 
> 1)This started out as a prequel to my [Propellers](https://archiveofourown.org/series/286014) series, but I decided I did not want to worry about making it perfectly consistent with that universe. The characterizations/kinks are similar but not identical.
> 
> 2)This fic contains some faux-homophobic dirty talk, roleplay, and fantasizing (done consensually and introduced by the sub, who is gay). It’s been suggested that I didn’t clearly describe what this entails, so I have added a longer description of it in the endnotes.
> 
> 3)I would like to thank [civilsmile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/civilsmile/pseuds/civilsmile) for being such a patient listener.

“Sorry I interrogated you. You were just full of such useful information. That's a sincere compliment.”— _Steven Universe_

_///_

Steve was tired, or he wouldn’t have said it; or he was coming down with something. Or maybe he’d stubbed his toe, he thought, furious with himself. He always had excuses for running off at the mouth, sleeping late, and in other ways falling short of how he knew he should be. Whatever the reason, he’d said it, and Bucky was staring at him with eyes like giant distressed blueberries.

“It— _what_?” Bucky said. His arm, which had been wrapped around Steve’s shoulders a moment before, had been retracted and he was now holding it stiffly against his chest. He’d stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Nothing,” Steve said. “Come on.” He tried to pull Bucky’s arm back around his shoulders, but it didn’t budge. He hadn’t meant to say anything, but it had just slipped out. _Do you have to keep squeezing me? It’s driving me crazy._

Bucky was giving Steve a much more serious look than the conversation merited. “It drives you crazy when I put my arm around you?” he asked.

“A little. I guess,” Steve allowed. “It’s nothing to write home about.”

“You just yelled at me,” Bucky said. “And I wasn’t squeezing you.”

“Get out of the way,” said an old lady, elbowing him.

“Come _on_ , Bucky,” Steve said. This at least convinced Bucky to start walking again. “Of _course_ you were squeezing me. People like you never realize how hard you’re doing it.”

Bucky winced. “Jesus,” he said.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Steve said. He glared at Bucky, hoping he would just get over it and drop his hangdog expression. But Bucky kept blinking at him with the same dreadful woundedness and Steve felt like the lowest of the low.

“What are _you_ sorry for?” Bucky asked.

Steve huffed. “Look, if you don’t want to drive me crazy, you _are_ , so knock it off!”

“Okay,” Bucky said.

“Seriously, drop it.”

“I _will_ ,” Bucky said. By then he was glaring right back.

///

But he didn’t even drop it at all. A few days later when Steve hauled himself out of bed and sat down at his desk to work, Bucky appeared at his elbow like a goblin. He was studying Steve. “Buck, I just woke up,” Steve said.

“What else drives you crazy?” Bucky said.

“Shove off,” Steve said.

Bucky loudly dragged a chair over from the kitchen and sat down next to Steve’s desk. He fixed his sincere gaze on Steve the same way, as a kid, he had once fixed it on teachers and other adults who were suspicious of him. That sweet look had often gotten him out of trouble, but here he was trying to get himself into it. Steve kept his head down and pretended Bucky wasn’t there.

“I was thinking—” Bucky said, just as soon as Steve had gotten absorbed in what he was doing. Steve snapped his head up to look at Bucky and Bucky stopped talking.

“ _What?_ ” Steve said. “You were thinking what? I’m listening.” He put down his pencil as dramatically as he could.

“I put my arm around you kind of a lot,” Bucky said.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Steve said.

“I do that with everyone.”

“Yeah, I _noticed_.”

“Okay,” Bucky said, “but since you don’t like it, why didn’t you say something? Or even just—” He mimed gently picking someone’s arm off his shoulder and moving it away.

“That would work for you, but not for me,” Steve told him.

“Why?” Bucky said.

“Because,” Steve said, “you’re strong enough to throw someone off, but for someone like me, if I try to squirm away, the person can just hold on tighter. I won’t get loose without a fight, and if I’m putting up a fight in the first place I already lost. Plus I probably wouldn’t get loose anyway.”

The distressed blueberry look reappeared. Steve felt he deserved an award for his patience as Bucky burbled, slow and horrified, “You think I’d do that to you? That I’d—that I wouldn’t let you get loose?”

Steve made himself laugh so Bucky would understand how trivial all of this was. “That’s what anyone would do, Buck. That’s how guys act. It’s just joking. You show they’re bothering you, they hold on tighter to try and get more of a rise out of you. Everybody’s like that.”

Bucky twisted his mouth up, thinking. “That happens to you a lot?”

“Since I was a kid,” Steve said. Or, well, since other guys had gotten bigger than him—but it felt like a time before then hadn’t really existed. It was such an integral part of his life.

“People have always bothered you,” Bucky said, “but—”

“Yeah,” Steve said, “but even when they’re being friendly. People aren’t trying to be shitty to me—and they’re _not_ , really. It’s all in good fun.”

“Hm,” Bucky said. He chewed on his lip for a minute. “But—did I ever do that to you? Do anything to make you think I’d keep grabbing you if you just said you didn’t want me to?”

“You put your arm around me in the first place,” Steve said.

“I thought you’d move away if you wanted me to stop!”

“Well, I just told you why I don’t do that. I don’t see what the big deal is, and I barely even woke up, so can you quit asking me about it?”

“Okay,” Bucky said, except then he kept talking so that Steve almost groaned aloud. “Look, it just seems kind of crazy to me. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because I don’t even _mind_ ,” Steve said. “You seem like you mind more than I do.”

“You said it drives you crazy,” Bucky said. “That you only don’t stop people because you think they’ll do it more—”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter,” Steve said. “Nobody gets everything they want in life, and _I_ sure don’t, so—” Bucky groaned now and Steve felt resentful since he had nobly swallowed his own groan. “What? I don’t. It just doesn’t matter.”

“Well,” Bucky said, “there’s a difference between—not getting everything you want in life..and making things worse for yourself for no reason. You could have just told me to stop.”

Steve sighed and laid his head on his desk—if only he just hadn’t pulled himself out of bed, this wouldn’t be happening. Well, maybe not; an image came into his head of Bucky dragging the chair up to the side of Steve’s bed and interrogating him while Steve pretended for all he was worth that he was asleep. Steve turned his head slightly from where he had it pillowed on his arms and looked at Bucky who was, unbelievably, still looking at him.

“Look, I won’t bring it up again,” Bucky said. Less convincing words had never been uttered. “Just—from now on I’ll only touch you if you ask me, okay? I’ll never do anything that you don’t say you want.”

Steve wanted to huff at him, but if the conversation was over he shouldn’t prolong it. He turned back to what he was doing.

///

But he couldn’t help saying, “Aha!” a few days later when Bucky draped himself over Steve’s shoulder to see what he was reading. Just _typical_.

There was a moment and then Bucky jumped up from the couch like Steve was on fire. “Sorry, shit, I’m so sorry,” he said—which was to his credit. “I forgot!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Steve said.

“ _Ugh_ ,” Bucky said, almost reflexively; then, “Well, is it okay with you if I sit on the couch?”

“What if it’s not?” Steve said.

“Well, then I’ll stand over here and ask you what you’re reading.”

“You could sit in a chair,” Steve said. Bucky went to get one of the chairs from the kitchen table. “No, stop, don’t be stupid. You can sit on the couch. I just meant you don’t have to be such a martyr about it.”

“I’m not being a martyr,” Bucky protested. He stood at the end of the couch. “Now, where can I sit?”

“Come _on_ ,” Steve said. Bucky just looked at him, obnoxiously raising his eyebrows into his hair. “You can sit next to me.”

“How close?”

Steve sighed; but Bucky just stood there, so he put his palm down next to his own leg. He laid it flat on the couch. “Here,” he said. “You can sit on the other side of my hand.”

Bucky came and sat down next to him, but he kept himself tense, like he was ready to spring up again if Steve had any complaints.

“Oh, come on. Bucky, _sit down_ ,” Steve said, and Bucky relaxed into the couch. Well, as much as anyone could relax into a couch like theirs, anyway.

“Okay,” Bucky said. “Now we got that over with, what are you reading?”

///

“Steve, check out that little kid playing with a pigeon,” Bucky whispered. It was really more of a stage whisper, but the kid didn’t notice. He was playing lion tamer or something, waving a piece of bread around so the pigeon would follow his hand.

“It’s going to bite him,” Steve said.

“I know,” Bucky said. “Don’t you want to watch? Come on and sit down with me and we can pretend we’re talking about something else.”

Steve sat down on the bench, but Bucky just stood there looking at him. “Oh, come on,” Steve said.

“Well?” Bucky said. Steve huffed. “You’re the one making a production out of it.”

“Kid’s gonna notice us,” Steve said. It was about to happen, too; he could see that the pigeon was at the end of its rope. But Bucky didn’t move, so Steve leaned over and picked up a twig from the ground. He put it in the middle of the bench.

“Wasn’t so hard,” Bucky said. He sat down on the other side of the twig.

“It’s pointless,” Steve said.

“You started it,” Bucky said.

“I didn’t,” Steve said. But the kid was already squawking as the pigeon gobbled his bread, and Bucky was laughing at him.

“You got nothing better to do?” the kid demanded, and Steve said:

“You learned your lesson, didn’t you? It’s mean to tease a hungry bird that way.”

///

Steve spent a little time trying to make the point to Bucky that it just wasn’t feasible, that the things that could bother Steve were just too varied to actually be concerned about. After some thought, Steve decided that he didn’t like feeling someone else’s breath on his face or the back of his neck. So he set himself up at the drawing board and waited. He even baited Bucky by drawing a giraffe, which was his personal favorite.

Sure enough Bucky leaned over behind him to look at the giraffe. “I don’t like you breathing on me,” Steve informed him.

“What?” Bucky said.

He sounded hurt, but it was his own fault, so Steve pressed on. “It bothers me when you lean over me and breathe on my ear,” he said, turning around to glare at Bucky.

“Okay,” Bucky said.

“You said you’d stop if it bothered me,” Steve said.

“ _Okay_ ,” Bucky said.

“So hold your breath if you’re going to look over my shoulder.”

“What?” Bucky said.

“Or you can’t look.”

Steve figured Bucky would storm off, saying he didn’t want to look at Steve’s stupid giraffe anyway. But instead he made a show of taking a big gulp of air, raising his eyebrows at Steve; and when Steve turned back to his drawing he heard Bucky step back up to lean over right behind him. But there was no breath on Steve’s neck, and there was no sound.

Steve set his jaw and drew for another minute. Then Bucky stepped back, suddenly, and started gasping in ragged breaths. Steve twisted around to look at him. “Well?” he said.

Bucky paused. “Your giraffe’s neck isn’t long enough,” he said. “It doesn’t look real.”

“They’re not as long as you think they are,” Steve said.

“They’re _giraffes_!”

“Your visual memory’s not any good.”

“Steve, how dare you,” Bucky said. “I _know_ what a giraffe looks like.” He held his breath and leaned back in to look.

///

“Can I sit here?” Bucky said, pulling his chair up to the dinner table. Steve looked at him. Bucky paused in mid-motion as he’d been sitting down in his chair. Steve said nothing, and Bucky just stayed still, waiting for him to talk. It didn’t look like a comfortable position to be frozen in, half standing up and half sitting down, but Bucky held it. He didn’t look mad, either. “Okay, sit down,” Steve said. Bucky sat down. “No, stand up,” Steve said.

Bucky actually _laughed_. He stood up, putting his hands behind his back like a butler. “Now what?” he said.

Steve pointed at the patch of wall next to the doorway, a yard away from the table. Now that he’d done that, he had to come up with something to say about it. “Put your chair against the wall.”

“Like—”

“—the back of the chair, right,” Steve said. Did Bucky think—“Sit like that.”

Bucky sat against the wall and regarded Steve. “You comfortable yet?”

“I thought you’d do whatever I wanted,” Steve said. “I thought it was no trouble.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Bucky said. “But do I get my plate?”

“Sure,” Steve said. “Stay put.” He got up, handed Bucky his plate off the table, and sat back down. Bucky just sat there looking at him. He couldn’t—“Why aren’t you eating?”

“You’re just sitting there looking at me,” Bucky said.

“Oh,” Steve said. He took a bite off his plate, but he couldn’t stop looking at Bucky. Bucky started eating, rolling his eyes at Steve. “Why are you _doing_ this?”

“What?” Bucky said. “You’re the one who told me to sit here.”

“You didn’t have to do it,” Steve said.

“If it’s what you want, it’s no skin off my back,” Bucky said.

“But you can’t just be willing to do any stupid thing _I_ want,” Steve said.

“If it’s what you want, it’s not stupid.”

“This is ridiculous,” Steve said.

Bucky said, “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

There was a pause. Bucky looked down, focusing on eating with his plate in his lap, but Steve still felt somehow bothered by the sight of him. “Hey,” he said. Bucky looked up. “I—uh. Turn around and face the wall.”

Bucky didn’t miss a beat. “Turn my chair around or sit backwards in the chair?” he asked.

“How would you eat sitting backwards in the chair?”

Steve stopped eating and went over to take Bucky’s plate and hold it for him while Bucky stood up, scraped his chair around, and sat back down. “Is this what you wanted?” he asked.

“Closer to the wall,” Steve said, keeping his mind blank.

Bucky scooted closer, so his spread knees touched the wall. When Steve gave him his plate there was barely enough room for it in his lap.

Then the two of them just paused there, Steve standing sort of next to and sort of behind Bucky and both of them staring at the wall. It wasn’t much to stare at. Bucky wasn’t touching his food, just holding his knife and fork nearly flat on the plate while he balanced the plate on his knees. He couldn’t—Bucky couldn’t be going to—

“Excuse me, Steve,” Bucky said.

He was.

“May I start eating again?”

“Yes,” Steve said. Bucky started eating. Steve stared at the wall some more, trying not to think about what he was doing. It didn’t make sense, and it was dumb, so if he started thinking about it he’d have to stop.

“Why aren’t you eating?” Bucky said.

“I will in a minute. I’m just not hungry,” Steve said.

“Of course you’re hungry, Steve. You just don’t eat for too long and then you stop feeling hungry. Feels like you’re always doing that.”

“Maybe I’m just not hungry. Your appetite’s probably bigger than mine.”

“If you say so,” Bucky said.

“Bucky,” Steve said. “Stop eating.”

Bucky stopped. Steve went back over to the table and sat down and picked up his fork.

“You can start again,” he said.

Bucky started. Steve ate and watched Bucky eat. If he sat at the right angle, he could see Bucky’s face in profile. Bucky was pausing between bites to chew on his lip, for some reason.

“Uh. Thanks,” Steve said.

“Huh?” Bucky said. “Oh. No, it’s no trouble. This is fun.”

“Huh,” Steve said. “No skin off your back?”

“Right,” Bucky said.

Steve watched him a minute longer; Bucky seemed to stutter in his eating, holding the fork in midair like he was daydreaming. “Hey, Bucky,” Steve said.

“Yeah?”

“Can I have the skin off your back?”

Bucky grinned—he didn’t turn to look at Steve. It was like he thought he wasn’t supposed to. “Sure,” he said. “Just wait until June. I’ll peel off my sunburn and hand it to you on a silver platter.”

“Fair enough,” Steve said.

///

Steve was working the next evening when Bucky came home from work. Sometimes he was done by then, but he’d slept too late and had trouble keeping his mind on anything even after he finally got up. He had a big piece of a commission left to finish before he could reasonably throw in the towel for the night.

Sometimes when Bucky came home he’d want to look at what Steve was drawing or inking, and ask him about it—what it was going to be and what it was for. It could be distracting, but Steve usually didn’t mind; talking helped him plan out the steps of what he was doing. But today when Bucky came home he just took his coat off and then stood there next to Steve, looking at him expectantly.

Steve looked up at him.

“So Steve, how are you doing?” Bucky said.

“I’m okay,” Steve said.

“How are you feeling?” Bucky asked.

“ _Okay_ ,” Steve said again. Then: “ _Oh_. You mean, am I _comfortable_?”

Bucky smiled.

“I don’t like you looming over me like that,” Steve said. He moved some of his supplies over to create more room on his desk. “Lean over and rest your elbows and arms on the desk.” This type of thing felt like a dream—the kind of dream where you realized you were dreaming and could make things happen, if you just introduced them confidently enough.

It really happened; Bucky leaned over. He rested his forearms where Steve had showed him. There wasn’t quite enough room for his elbows, so they hung off the desk. Bucky didn’t crouch down; he bent himself in half, so his backside was higher than his head. “So, are you still uncomfortable?” Bucky said.

“I’m pretty comfortable,” Steve said, “but I had to move all my ink and pencils over. Ugh. Now you’re in the way.”

“Oh,” Bucky said. “Did you want to do something about that?”

“I—I don’t know,” Steve said. His mind racing, he said, “Open your mouth.”

He expected a pause, at the very least; but Bucky opened his mouth immediately—and, strangely, he closed his eyes. Steve picked up one of his pencils and placed it lengthwise in Bucky’s mouth. Bucky closed his teeth on the pencil and held it there like a dog with a stick.

“You should open your eyes,” Steve said. Bucky did. “If you’re gonna be my pencil holder, then you should be watching me so you’ll know when I want them back.”

Bucky’s throat made a weird noise.

Steve took the pencil out of his mouth. “Are you okay?” The dreamlike sensation was so heavy, like dust motes in the air. Steve didn’t move a muscle more than he had to.

Bucky got a very strange look on his face. He moved his mouth around, but no words came out. He closed it. The dreaming sensation broke.

“I was just—you can get up,” Steve said. Bucky didn’t move. His eyes widened. He chewed on his lip. Steve was becoming anxious. “Buck, what are you doing? What’s the matter?”

Bucky was just staring at him. Steve grabbed his shoulder. “Bucky, what is it? What’s wrong with you?” He felt like he should apologize for being so—for whatever the hell was wrong with him that had possessed him to stick a pencil in Bucky’s mouth like a crazy person.

Why would he _do_ something like that? Just to see what Bucky would do? Or, no, not because of that—because he _knew_ what Bucky would do, because there was something so nice about having one person who actually listened to him and would do whatever he wanted.

Something was seriously wrong with Steve. Bucky had just been trying to help, even if the way he was trying to do that had more or less been through an escalating series of dares, and Steve had taken this way too far.

“This is. Uh. This is way too far,” Bucky said. “I’ve really—” Abruptly he sat down on the floor next to Steve’s chair and put his face in his hands. “Ugh,” he mumbled into them. “Sorry, Steve,” he said, looking back up. “I can’t—I mean, you must think I’m crazy. And I don’t blame you.”

This was exactly what Steve would have said if he’d mustered up the courage to speak. “Of course I don’t think you’re crazy,” he said. “I just stuck a pencil in your mouth.”

“I made you do that,” Bucky said. “God, Steve, I’m so sorry. This really wasn’t how I intended this to go. But you’re so annoying! You stick up for everything but yourself, I don’t understand why you can’t just tell me when something bothers you—we’ve only been friends for ten years—”

“Because it doesn’t _matter_!” Steve said. “No one ever cares how I feel and you suddenly waltz in and decide to start asking me a million questions about it?” To start arguing about this again was a weird feeling; once the strange game had taken off Steve had almost forgotten the point he’d been trying to make.

Bucky winced. “God, Steve, I’m so sorry. I’m just—” He stood up suddenly. “Well, never mind.” He rushed over to the door to the fire escape.

“What’s wrong with you? Come back here,” Steve said.

Bucky turned back toward him, his body seeming to hesitate in space for a moment. He regarded Steve with an oddly blank expression, then shoved it off his face and went outside.

Steve wasn’t sure how he’d thought the night would go, but this wasn’t it. He had no idea what Bucky was sorry for. He was being really bullheaded about not touching Steve, and Steve saying when things bothered him, and Steve sure would have welcomed an apology about that because it was really irritating in a typically Bucky way. But Bucky still hadn’t apologized for that. He still thought he was right! So what was he apologizing for?

He’d said he had _made_ Steve stick a pencil in his mouth. As baffled as Steve was by his own behavior, he at least had enough sense to know that you couldn’t force another person to stick a pencil in your mouth and call you a pencil holder. Steve couldn’t come up with a good explanation for why he’d done that or why he had, for example, told Bucky to eat his dinner facing the wall; but he knew that, in those dreamlike moments, he had wanted to do those things.

As much as Bucky got on Steve’s nerves, he hadn’t done anything worth being so contrite about. Steve got up and poked his head out onto the fire escape. Bucky, the lunatic, was smoking and looking mournfully down at the alley. “Quit acting crazy and tell me what the problem is,” Steve said.

“It’s nothing, really,” Bucky said.

“Oh, right, it’s nothing,” Steve said. “Then what did you say sorry for so many times? And how come you’re apologizing instead of me? How can you say you made me do that?”

Bucky rolled his shoulders, not looking at him. He politely turned his head away from Steve to avoid blowing smoke in his face, then turned back and said, composedly, “I like that kind of thing—that’s all. But I didn’t intend for that kind of thing to happen with _you_. I just wanted you to listen to me about understanding I’ll listen to you. That’s all I wanted. I didn’t mean the other stuff to be part of it.”

“What other stuff?” Steve asked. Bucky inhaled slowly. “What—what ‘kind of thing?’”

“Uh, you know,” Bucky said. “You telling me what to do with the food at dinner. Telling me where to sit on a bench. Making me hold my breath. That kind of thing.” He shrugged like this all made sense.

“How can you—I mean. That isn’t a ‘kind of thing.’” At least, Steve didn’t understand the system.

“Maybe not for you,” Bucky said. He finished his cigarette, stubbed it out, and tossed it over the railing. Then he turned to look at Steve like nothing was wrong.

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve said. He wasn’t as good at just waiting until someone did something as Bucky was. He always had to twist their arm. “If you’re going to stare at me and make funny noises with your throat, and then fall all over yourself apologizing for nothing, I have a right to know what’s going on.”

Bucky looked him in the eye. Then he shrugged. “Okay, fine,” he said, “but let’s go inside. I’m cold.”

“You’re the one who came out here,” Steve said.

Bucky came inside and pulled out the chair from Steve’s desk to sit in. He sat in it backwards, like he had back when he was trying to look tough in high school.

“Okay,” Steve said. “What _is_ it?”

“Stop talking at me,” Bucky said. He paused and said, “Well, you—you know how I’m queer.”

“What? Well, obviously,” Steve said, but he didn’t know how they got there from here.

“Well, it’s about that,” Bucky said. He adjusted his hair, which was fine. “Shit, this—a person doesn’t expect to be talking about things like this with _you_ , Steve. Um...hmm. Well, you know I’m queer, you know I go with guys sometimes—and when I go with a guy I like for him to tell me what to do. Do you know what I mean? It excites me.”

“I get the picture,” Steve said. He could already feel himself getting flustered—not because of the queer part, but because he never thought about that kind of thing at all.

“I’m just checking,” Bucky said. “Because you—but it’s actually more...well, never mind. But the point is, I shouldn’t have been thinking about you that way. I apologize.”

“What?” Steve said.

“You’re like a brother to me,” Bucky said.

“You—” Steve said. “You don’t mean you were thinking about me like one of those guys?”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said.

“You couldn’t be thinking about me like that,” Steve said. “I don’t understand. That is—especially—Bucky, I’ve _seen_ the guys you go with. They’re much better-looking than me.”

“God, Steve, you’re so impossible to talk to about _anything_ ,” Bucky said. “Everyone thinks you’re good-looking, and what does it have to do with this? Besides, it doesn’t matter how you look anyway. We started doing the kinds of things I like, by accident. I got excited by it. Now I’m apologizing because you’re like a brother to me! I’d _never_ think of you like that!”

“You said that already.”

“I know you’re not queer,” Bucky said. “I never meant to make you uncomfortable.”

“Isn’t that how we got into trouble in the first place?” Steve said. “Anyway, I’m not uncomfortable.”

Bucky blinked at him. “You’re not?”

“No! Why would I be? You act like I’m a little kid or something.”

Bucky looked guilty. “I didn’t—I don’t think you’re a kid, Steve. You know that. It’s not _you_. I just—” He ran a hand through his hair, which was now becoming messy from all his fiddling. “I appreciate that you’re not uncomfortable. _I_ don’t think it’s a big issue, I just thought—but of course you understand. I don’t think of you in a queer way.”

“I get it,” Steve said. “You don’t have to say it ten more times. I’m not uncomfortable.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. “Good.”

There was a pause, during which Bucky’s position in the chair started to look even dumber. Steve wished he could tell him to sit normally. “Is that really what you do with your guys?” he asked. “They tell you how to eat dinner?”

“We don’t really do much eating,” Bucky said.

“Oh,” Steve said. “So they tell you to—”

“Why are you asking me this stuff?”

“I’m just curious. You’re the one who’s acting like a little kid about it, as far as I can see. Why is it such a secret?”

“Fine,” Bucky said. “Well, if you really want to know, I can’t find one who will tell me to do the type of thing I want to be told to do. They’re all bad at it.”

“Oh,” Steve said.

“Yeah, _oh_. Even if I can find ones who don’t want me to, you know, _pitch_ —” Bucky raised his eyebrows at Steve—

“I get it,” Steve said. “Even if they let you _catch_ , right?”

“Okay. Well, they still don’t do it the way I want. Even if I _tell_ them, they don’t seem to follow or something. They don’t get what the point of it is; they just want to get their dicks wet.”

Steve didn’t want to be insensitive, but he ventured, “I guess that _is_ the point for a lot of people. I mean, I didn’t even know that this was something a person could want until you just told me. Maybe not a lot of people—”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky said. He sighed. “Honestly, the past few weeks with you have been the closest I’ve gotten to what I actually want. Maybe that’s why I didn’t stop it as soon as I started...realizing I was enjoying it too much. I should have, but I just kept letting it happen.”

There was another pause, during which Steve felt frozen. He couldn’t say what he wanted to, just let it sit uselessly in his mind. It was the opposite of all the other times. He looked at Bucky, willing him to look back, but instead Bucky looked down at his own hands which were braced on the chair.

Steve stupidly imagined that if he got into the right place in his mind, he wouldn’t have to talk to get Bucky to look up. He could move some levers in his brain and somehow direct Bucky to meet his eyes. But this wasn’t going to be enough.

Bucky shifted as if to stand up. He started to say something.

“We can keep doing it,” Steve said. It turned out this was all it took to make Bucky stare at him. “We could. If you want—if you like it that much—since it just happened. We could let it keep happening.”

“That’s ridiculous, Steve, you’re not queer,” Bucky said. Then he stopped and waited for Steve to talk, which wasn’t something he ever did.

“So what?” Steve said. “It doesn’t matter. I like telling you what to do. Since I’m not queer, we won’t do anything else—I’ll just tell you what to do. Isn’t that your whole point? I don’t do anything I don’t want to do?”

“This hardly has anything to do with that,” Bucky said.

“All I’m saying,” Steve said—he had no idea of what he was saying—“is we could just keep doing what we’ve been doing, and if you like it in a queer way that’s all right with me. I don’t have anything against that.” Bucky tilted his head, listening. Steve rushed, “Especially if you can’t find anyone to do it, you know, I don’t mind helping you out. What are friends for?”

Bucky opened his mouth to say something and then hesitated. “Never mind,” he said. “Go on.”

“You could tell me about what you like, and if you ever ask for something I don’t want to do, I’ll just say I don’t want to.”

Bucky snorted. “You will, huh. Doesn’t sound like you to me.”

“That’s not fair, Buck. I’ve been playing your stupid game for weeks. If you’re going to complain about me not telling you every little thing that crosses my mind, then—yeah, I’ll tell you. So what do you say?”

“I don’t think so,” Bucky said.

“Fine,” Steve said. There was no point pushing anymore. No matter how much the queer guys annoyed Bucky, some of them at least _looked_ imposing and Bucky didn’t have to come to their rescue every five minutes. The idea of anyone getting excited about following Steve’s orders was ludicrous.

Bucky said, “We need more rules than just saying you don’t have to do anything you don’t want. We should agree that I don’t touch you at all, and that’s official. That doesn’t enter into it; you just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“Oh,” Steve said. “Well, okay. You haven’t really been touching me during it so far.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. “What else?”

“Well, you have to tell me if you don’t like something, too.”

“Well, obviously. I’m not going to jump off a bridge just because you told me to. What other rules do we need, though? Hmm.” Bucky leaned forward, thinking, and almost knocked the chair over. He caught himself and tried to play it off like it hadn’t happened.

“You don’t even know how to sit in a chair,” Steve said. “Sit on the floor instead.”

Bucky’s eyes widened. He just sat there looking at Steve for a minute, looking unreasonably surprised; Steve tried to look back as neutrally as he could. Then Bucky got up and knelt down in front of Steve.

Steve’s stomach started swooping around like crazy. He took deep breaths. “Pass me the chair,” he said. Bucky pushed it over, and Steve sat down in it, with Bucky there in front of him. “Well, anyway,” Steve said. “That’s better. I just don’t want you breaking my chair with your stupid antics. What were you saying?”

“Rules,” Bucky said.

“You can’t touch me,” Steve said. “Don’t jump off a bridge just because I told you to. Okay. What else?” He didn’t really care about rules, in theory, but the idea of coming up with them and having them be obeyed was nice. Bucky was looking at him expectantly, but when Steve looked back at him, Bucky looked down. This made something happen to Steve’s face; a big, soft-feeling and probably dumb-looking smile that he could feel blooming out of it. “Keep your eyes down,” Steve blurted out. “That—that should be a rule.”

“Okay,” Bucky said.

Just as quickly it didn’t seem right. “Well, you might need to look up at me for a second. And that’s allowed. But you shouldn’t keep looking at me. You should look up quickly, and then look down.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. He raised his eyes to Steve, then lowered them, slowly and theatrically, to the floor. “Like that?”

“Yeah,” Steve said.

Bucky smiled. The fact that he was looking away made it look like a private smile, like Steve was witnessing something secret. Bucky’s eyes flicked up again. “So. Are you comfortable?”

“I,” Steve said. “I—no. I guess I need to tell you to do more things before I can be really comfortable.” Bucky glanced up at him, grinning. “Put your hands behind your back. Having them free makes me uncomfortable.”

It was nice to watch Bucky do that, but then Steve didn’t know what else to ask for. Bucky looked—Steve didn’t even know how to think or talk about the way he looked, kneeling with his hands behind his back and his head bowed, _waiting_. He said nothing, just knelt there quietly and wonderfully; and then, just as wonderfully, he spoke. “I came up with some things,” he said, “if you wanted to hear them.”

“Just now?” Steve asked. He didn’t think he could measure up, if Bucky could come up with ideas that quickly.

“Not just now,” Bucky said. He bit his lip. “I’ve _been_ thinking about it. Nothing dirty, just—imagining things. Ways you might make yourself more comfortable.”

“Tell me,” Steve said.

Bucky glanced up at him. “Really? It’s okay?”

“Didn’t you hear me the first time? Tell me.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. He looked down again. “What I thought is—if me being bigger than you bothers you, I could stay down on my knees all the time. I could walk around the apartment on my knees, maybe?” He looked up at Steve, like he was gauging his reaction. “We don’t have to do anything,” he said hurriedly.

“Don’t be stupid,” Steve said. “Keep talking.”

Bucky put his head back down. “You could—you could tie my hands together so I can’t touch you.” Steve must have made some kind of noise, and Bucky looked up at him in alarm. “Steve, come on. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’m sorry I said it.” He made as if to get up.

“ _Don’t get up_ ,” Steve said. Bucky paused, so he fumbled to continue. “We can’t talk about it if you keep looking at me. I’ve never thought about this before. I don’t know what I want to do—you have to tell me about it.”

Bucky looked suspicious. “Okay,” he said.

“You said okay, but you still have your feet on the floor. Get on your knees again.” Slowly, watching Steve as if for sudden moves, Bucky obeyed him. “Hands behind your back. Eyes down—no. Close your eyes.”

Bucky closed his eyes, and Steve immediately felt a lot better. He just _couldn’t_ look calm about everything right away. But that didn’t mean he didn’t like it.

“Stay still,” he said, because Bucky already looked so much like a statue and Steve wanted the resemblance to be perfect. Steve got out of the chair and crouched down next to Bucky—Bucky fidgeted a little, and Steve said, “No. No moving. What if I look at you for a change?”

That seemed to do the trick. Steve put his hand on the side of Bucky’s head, tipping his face up. He could look at him properly like this, all the details he wouldn’t want to be caught staring at if Bucky’s eyes were open. He could smell him—his skin, the cream in his hair—the brand he’d been using for the past three and a half years. He wanted to, so he did, closing his eyes, leaning his face against Bucky’s cheek.

When he opened his eyes, nothing had changed except that a faint, barely noticeable smile pulled up one side of Bucky’s mouth, and his shoulders were more relaxed. Steve thought he might as well go the whole hog, so he licked Bucky’s ear. “You taste weird,” he said.

“Do you want me to taste different?” Bucky said. It wasn’t exactly teasing—well, he was teasing, but he was teasing like he could change the taste of his skin, or anything else about himself, to be what Steve wanted.

“Hmm,” Steve said. He licked again, then closed his teeth gently around Bucky’s earlobe. He sucked on it and Bucky twitched.

“Sorry,” he said.

“What?”

“For moving without permission.”

This shocked Steve so badly that he wanted—well, he didn’t know what he wanted, but he wanted it a lot. He settled for taking hold of Bucky’s hair, gently, and saying in a snappish sort of voice, “Open your eyes.”

When Bucky opened them, Steve let go of him and moved back a little bit, watching him. But Bucky didn’t do anything. He just looked curious, like he was waiting to see what Steve would do.

“You—” Steve said. Bucky kept waiting. “I—” he tried again.

“What can I do for you?” Bucky asked.

“Oh,” Steve said.

“What do you want? I’ll do it.”

“I don’t—I don’t know what I want,” Steve said.

“That’s okay.” Bucky moved his tongue around in his mouth, like he was thinking of saying something else. Before he could, Steve figured out what he wanted.

“Tell me everything.”

Bucky stopped trying to come up with something to say. He just looked at Steve.

“I haven’t thought about it before,” Steve said, “but you must have thought about it a lot. Not just about me, but—the queer guys, right? You said they’re not doing what you like, so you must know what you like.”

“What I think I’d like, anyway,” Bucky said.

“Well, yeah,” Steve said. “Even you won’t know until you try it. But—do you like it so far?” Bucky nodded. “So maybe you know pretty well.”

“It’s sort of complicated,” Bucky said. “Because—” He paused for a long time.

“ _Tell_ me,” Steve said. “Do I have to ask you again?”

“Screw you!” Bucky said. “I’m not hesitating to _tell_ you. I’m thinking about how to _say_ it. I’ve never talked about thinking about it before. Does that pass muster?” He made a face at Steve and then, catching himself, he looked down. But he kept making the face.

That made Steve feel like he was going to melt. “Yeah. Okay. I understand. You can take your time.” He could see that Bucky was rolling his eyes at the floor. “You better thank me, though, since I’m being so generous.”

“Thanks,” Bucky said.

“Like you mean it,” Steve said. “Look at me.”

“You told me not to look at you,” Bucky protested.

“Yeah, and now I’m changing my mind. You taking issue with that?”

“Nope,” Bucky said. He wiggled around on his knees and gave Steve the full force of his warmest smile. “Oh, and thank you for being so generous. I sincerely appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “Now get back to thinking, so you can tell me everything.”

Bucky laughed out loud. “Maybe I should have known you’d be good at this,” he said. “I guess what I meant is, not everything I thought about is how I wanted things to be. Or if I imagined guys, they weren’t the kind of guys that I’d really want. You know what I mean?”

“No,” Steve said.

“Do you ever—think about girls, or other people—that you might—”

“No.”

“Okay. Hmm.” Bucky tipped his head to the side, thinking. “Well, I like thinking about getting kidnapped.” He eyeballed Steve for a reaction.

“Close your eyes again.”

“Sheesh. Fine.” Bucky closed his eyes and continued, somewhat more hesitantly, “I always liked thinking about getting kidnapped by men, before I even knew I liked men—”

“But you’ve been going with men for a long time,” Steve said.

“That’s right.”

“So you’ve wanted this for—years.”

“For my whole life,” Bucky said. Then, as if sensing how heavily he’d said it, he smirked and shrugged. “Anyway. I always thought about being kidnapped by some guy, or— _threatened_ or something—how that person might treat me, taking advantage of me, you know, hurting me, breaking my spirit.” Now it was Steve’s turn to laugh. Bucky opened his eyes a crack. “ _What_?”

“Close your eyes. It’s just hard to imagine you getting your spirit broken from getting kidnapped or taken advantage of.”

“Why, because I’d love it?”

Bucky’s breeziness in saying this shocked Steve a little. “Well, no,” he said haltingly. “I just mean—it’s hard to imagine you getting your spirit broken from anything.”

“Oh,” Bucky said. “Well, of course. It’s just a story. That’s what I’m trying to explain. When I’ve thought about things on my own, it mostly hasn’t been very realistic or anything. So I can’t really tell you something I made up about a guy getting the drop on me and keeping me in a root cellar, bound and gagged—”

“Lots of root cellars in Brooklyn,” Steve said.

“—I can’t really tell you about that and say, ‘It’s what I like.’ It’s not exactly what I’d like; it’s just what I think about.”

“I see,” Steve said. “But—will you open your eyes now? I still want to hear about it, even if it’s not what you want to do. It’s interesting.”

“It’s not _that_ interesting,” Bucky said.

“If you say so. I don’t know anyone else who thinks about getting kidnapped and tied up in a root cellar.”

Steve took note of the way Bucky looked when he said this. Even though having Bucky keep his eyes closed was mostly protection for Steve, it protected Bucky a little, too. With Bucky’s eyes open, Steve could see he was a little embarrassed. Then Bucky steadied himself and said, “Well, this is a lot of excitement! I better get an early night.”

He stood up and held out a hand to help Steve up; Steve took it, without really understanding what was going on. Then when they were both on their feet, Bucky shook his hand.

“So, tomorrow—I can tell you a story tomorrow, if you want, I think,” he said. “If you’re really curious. If that’s what you really want. I mean.”

“Yeah,” Steve said.

“Only if it’s what you want,” Bucky said.

“Why don’t you ask me if it’s what I want a few more times?” Steve snapped. He regretted it after.

///

It ended up taking days before Bucky told him. They just kept neither of them bringing it up, until Steve finally came up to Bucky on an afternoon when he knew he didn’t have anything to do, and nudged him harder than he should have in the arm, and said, “Hey. Are you going to tell me the story?”

Bucky blinked at him and said, “Well, sure.” Then a moment passed and he said, “Where do you want me?” and Steve’s blood rushed.

Steve just had Bucky sit on the floor in a corner; at first he sat himself in a chair above Bucky, which he certainly liked, but Bucky was talking softer than usual. Steve liked ordering him to repeat himself, at first, but pretty soon the suspense was killing him and he sat down on the floor next to Bucky. He also began to touch Bucky’s face and arms while he talked—intermittently reminding Bucky that he wasn’t allowed to touch back—and between all those kinetic details, it took quite a while for Steve to pick up any details of the story.

“I used to think about baths a lot,” Bucky said, and he gave Steve one of those weird, watchful, hopeful once overs, like Steve was going to know exactly what he meant.

Steve didn’t know, though. “What about baths?” he asked as encouragingly as he could.

Bucky paused. His eyes skidded and stopped in the corner of the ceiling. “I, uh,” he said, his mouth working, and—he was _embarrassed_! He was too embarrassed to talk. Steve couldn’t believe it.

“You’re _embarrassed_!” Steve burst out. He knew it wasn’t nice or necessary to say it, and he didn’t _mean_ to say it, but the fact overwhelmed him with a combination of disbelief and delight. Bucky winced—that wasn’t right, Steve didn’t want him to feel bad—and he was, ridiculously, grabbing Bucky’s arm. “ _No_. You’re not allowed to be embarrassed,” he said sternly. That wasn’t right. “I mean, you might be but I don’t _care_ if you’re embarrassed. You’re not allowed to not say it because it embarrasses you. I want to know, and I’m asking you, and you have to do what I tell you—”

Bucky was looking at him attentively. He didn’t look so uncomfortable anymore. He looked—he was _pleased_ with Steve. Steve tried not to let the resulting smile take over his face, but it was so wide that it actually hurt. He hissed and squeezed Bucky’s arm harder, digging his fingertips in. Bucky winced a little at the squeezing, but he didn’t stop Steve from doing it, and he kept his eyes on Steve.

“I,” Steve said, “I’ll _make_ you if you don’t tell me. You don’t get to say no.”

Bucky was smiling back at him. “What’ll you do if I say no? How will you make me?” he asked.

Why’d you have to say that, Steve thought. Of course he had no way of forcing Bucky to do anything. That was how all this had gotten started. “I—I can’t,” he said, and then he saw a way out. “But I want you to tell me. I won’t be _comfortable_ if you don’t tell me, and you’re gonna do whatever it takes to make me comfortable, aren’t you?”

“I guess I’d better,” Bucky said.

“Then tell me,” Steve said. He had an idea and he didn’t know if it was too much, so he put his other hand on Bucky’s face, holding him gently from his jaw to his hairline, and said carefully, “How do you think I feel, Buck, knowing you think about this sick stuff all the time?” He rubbed his thumb on Bucky’s cheek and said, “You’re pretty _bent_ , aren’t you? You’re a pervert, aren’t you?” Bucky was still smiling, so maybe Steve was doing it right; Bucky knew he didn’t mean it. Steve squeezed his arm as hard as he could.

“Ow!” Bucky said.

“I asked you a question,” Steve said. “Aren’t you a pervert?”

Bucky beamed at him; he sucked in a shaky breath and said, “Yeah, Steve, I am. I’m a freak and I—I want things to happen to me that no one should ever think about.” He smiled bigger, giving Steve an extremely staged looking shy look from under his eyelashes. “Please don’t—please—” He paused. “We don’t—only if you want—but could I kiss your hand?”

Steve was surprised. But he thought about it, and there wasn’t any way a person could grab you or overpower you with just their lips. “Okay.”

Bucky turned his head and kissed Steve’s palm, then returned to his previous position. “Please don’t make me talk about it. Please don’t make me tell you all of it—I’d be too _embarrassed_. _Please_ don’t say that I have to tell you everything. I mean—if you want to.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve said. “Please don’t make you do all of that?”

“I’d hate it,” Bucky said.

Steve girded himself. “Tough luck,” he said, and he took his hand off Bucky’s face and grabbed the hand he hadn’t been holding. God, he felt stupid. Feeling like he was doing a bad job acting in a play, he said, “You have to tell me and I don’t care if you hate it or how embarrassed you are. If you’re embarrassed to talk about what a freak you are, then you shouldn’t have thought about those things. I already _know_ what you are—I can _see_ how much you like it. I saw you—I _heard_ you, the other day—”

Steve felt himself practically hiss the last words. It was overpowering to think about the moment when he’d put the pencil in Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky had made that noise. Steve hadn’t known what was going on, but now that they’d talked about it more, and he knew that Bucky had _loved_ it, had gotten excited from being treated that way—

“I saw you,” Steve said again, and now his hands on Bucky’s wrists felt like they could be manacles made of iron. Bucky smiled but it was a small, nervous-looking smile—he was _nervous_? He was nervous because of Steve? Jesus Christ—and Steve felt that big overwhelming smile taking over his face again. “Tell me,” Steve said. “Tell me what you think about. I already _know_ how pathetic”—it looked like that was okay to say—“I know how pathetic you are, so I’m not gonna be surprised.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. “I—uh—the bath thing?”

“Oh, so you’re stupid as well as pathetic?” Steve said. “You already forgot what we were talking about?” This came out almost without thought and Bucky leaned back against the wall a little more, unruffled or at least not ruffled badly.

“Sorry. We were talking about the bath thing.” Bucky grinned a little, gave Steve a sidelong glance. “Well, I’ve been thinking about it since I was a kid. Even though when I was a kid I didn’t exactly get—anyway.” He shrugged as best he could with Steve holding his arms. “There’s this guy and he’s, well—he’s got me.”

“He kidnapped you,” Steve supplied.

Bucky shook his head. “Not exactly. Well, maybe. I don’t always think about why, but usually I’d feel like it’s my fault. Like I—” He tipped his head to the side, thinking. “Maybe I, I don’t know, owe him money? No, that’s not it. Maybe I did something that caused problems for him and I have to pay him back—or maybe I met him at a queer bar and went home with him, but now I’m having second thoughts when I realize how mean he is. The point is I got myself into this, I said he could do whatever he wanted to me, but now I’m wishing I never said it. But it’s too late.”

“What does he want to to do to you?”

It was funny how Bucky had dropped most of the embarrassment. He spoke neutrally and carefully, like he was explaining anything else that Steve might want to know the details of. His arms were relaxed under Steve’s hands. “That depends. I don’t always think about it. These days, it’s been having to suck his dick, but _rough_ , not how most people would do it—”

—Steve didn’t know how most people would do it, but he didn’t want to say—

“—deep, deep in the back of my throat—you know, so I couldn’t breathe, so it hurt really bad for me and my eyes would fill up with tears, and he’d notice—but he wouldn’t _care_. And he’d make me swallow all his come down—or else he’d shoot it all over my face and he wouldn’t let me wash it off. You know, that kind of thing.”

“Jesus,” Steve said. He felt like he was being run over by a car.

“What?” Bucky said.

“Nothing,” Steve said, embarrassed. “I just never really—except on my own, and—”

That was the overstatement of the century. Even on his own, he didn’t like jerking off very much. Guys were supposed to want to, once they got over the threat of hairy palms, but Steve just—well, sure it hurt his hands, but he still drew, even though that hurt his hands. But he had reason to draw. What was the reason for jerking off, except occasionally, in the most perfunctory way? And it was hard to get worked up, anyway—thinking about things nobody would want him for, or thinking about the things someone _would_ want him for, which was even worse. There just wasn’t—

Just as suddenly, Steve thought: but it wouldn’t hurt his hands if Bucky would suck him. If they did it the way he’d said it—well, Steve didn’t really know how it worked, but he wouldn’t have to use his hands, and Bucky would be—choking, with tears streaming down his face—

Steve felt dizzy, like this image had bashed him over the head. He frantically tried to seem normal. He blinked several times. Bucky looked concerned and tried to pull one of his arms back. Without thinking Steve tightened his grip and, looking startled, Bucky relaxed his arm.

“Steve,” he said, “you have to—maybe I shouldn’t be—”

“What?” Steve said.

Making a face like he was tasting something bad, Bucky said, “Is this bothering you?”

“No,” Steve said.

“I know it’s—strange,” Bucky said. “It’s a lot, and maybe I—”

“You’re not bothering me,” Steve said.

Bucky looked unconvinced. Steve tried to force himself to say something stronger— _I like this, I want it, please tell me more_ —but he couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come up. Part of it maybe was he was embarrassed, but another part of it was that this felt good exactly the way it was—with Bucky being the freak, the one who wanted it, and Steve the audience, playing up his disgust at Bucky’s perversity. He wouldn’t like it so much if he had to say he liked it.

Suddenly Steve thought of something he _could_ say; he squeezed Bucky’s wrists and leaned forward, smiling. “A _lot_ , Buck? That’s one word for it, for the disgusting, pathetic story you’ve dreamed up for yourself.” Bucky wasn’t buying it; Steve smiled harder, squeezing his wrist. “Makes me sick to my stomach, makes me want to”—in for a penny, in for a pound—“makes me want to beat it out of you, _fix_ you, punish you so you won’t be such a sick little freak anymore. You better tell me every nasty thought you have in your head, right this _second_ , or so help me God I’ll...well, I’ll stop at nothing to get you to tell me.”

He had said it so fast it was barely distinguishable to him, the words tumbling and blurring together. Bucky stared at him open mouthed, then grinned. Bucky had always had a variety of nice smiles—Steve couldn’t help knowing that—but this was maybe the nicest he’d ever seen. Bucky sighed and tipped his head back like he was relaxing in a warm bath—which, come to think of it—

“Out with it,” Steve said sharply. “What’s he do? Before he makes you cry and doesn’t care, or whatever else he’s going to do—what’s he do with you in the bath?”

“Nothing big,” Bucky said. “It’s just the principle of the thing. Like—if you got a secondhand frying pan, or a rented suit, you’d wash it before you used it. He doesn’t know where I’ve been so he puts me in the bath right away. He wants me to be clean and ready for him.”

“Bet it’s a cold bath, huh?” Steve said. “You’re shivering and shaking, but _he_ doesn’t care, right? No more than he’d care about a pan.”

Bucky grinned more. “That’s right!” he said. “I never thought of that part, but it’s right in line!”

“Then what?”

“He washes me all over,” Bucky said. “My back, my face, my hair. Scrubbing hard because—you guessed it—”

“He doesn’t care,” Steve said.

“Yep! And then I’m _so_ nervous. Scared as can be.” Bucky didn’t look scared. “Then he reaches down with the rag—he reaches for my dick.” He paused and tilted his head to one side.

“It’s _fine_ ,” Steve said. “I’ve got one too, you know.”

“Okay. Well, when he tries to wash my dick, I just panic—I’ve been sitting still, with my hands behind my back, but now I’m trying to get away from him and I’m trying to cover my dick with my hand, and he—” Bucky paused and sucked in a breath. His face had changed. “He forces my hands back behind my back, and he slaps me in the face. Then he pulls my head back by the hair and he slaps me really hard in the face again. He tells me, ‘Eyes up,’ and he looks me right in the eyes and tells me”—Bucky was kind of mumbling, half-smiling and ducking his head down into his chest—“he tells me, ‘spread your legs, boy.’ He tells me I’m never to—never _allowed_ to hide my body from him, because it’s all his, and—”

“Excuse me,” Steve said. Bucky paused. “I gotta take a leaf out of that guy’s book, because you’re talking into your shoulder and I can’t hear you. Eyes up, Bucky.”

Bucky brought his face up. “Oh,” was all he said. He gazed at Steve.

“Well?” Steve said. “He says ‘spread your legs, boy’—I assume he calls you ‘boy’ because he doesn’t care what your name is, you little old used frying pan—”

Bucky burst out laughing. It made him shake, his shoulders hunching in a way that normally would push someone’s head down—but he pointedly kept his head up, his eyes on Steve. “You’re a bully,” he said. “All this time and—you’re such a _bully_ , Steve. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Well,” Steve said, “someone has now.” He took his right hand off Bucky’s left wrist, for some reason, and it ended up resting on Bucky’s cheek. Steve rubbed his knuckles against Bucky’s face, absentmindedly, and then he pushed his thumb into the corner of Bucky’s mouth. “Open up,” he said, but Bucky was already sucking Steve’s thumb into his mouth. It startled Steve a little bit; Bucky looked surprised too. Steve took his hand away, his thumb almost stinging, and put it back on Bucky’s wrist. He awkwardly wiped the spit on Bucky’s sleeve. Just as suddenly he wished Bucky had no shirt on.

Bucky had a tentative smile on his face. “It’s okay with you?” he asked. His voice was soft. He moved his arms a little, not pulling away—which of course he could have done—but wiggling his wrists, in a friendly sort of way, against the webbing of Steve’s fingers.

Steve said, “You think we went through all this for me to let you do something I’m not okay with? If you consider this you doing something to me.”

“Well, I’m doing all the talking,” Bucky said.

“Not really,” Steve said. “And besides—as it stands, I don’t know what I like.”

///

By the time Bucky came home the next night, Steve felt convinced they were never going to talk like that ever again. It didn’t seem like the bath conversation could have really happened, and even if it had, Bucky had to realize how unsuited Steve was to that kind of activity. After a day to think about it, he’d probably decided it was an absurd mistake, and wasn’t even going to mention it.

No, Steve realized; Bucky was too considerate to just avoid the subject. He would at least straightforwardly let Steve down, and Steve resolved to pretend he wasn’t disappointed that he wouldn’t get to learn more about what Bucky liked—and, most of all, to get to feel the way he had felt when he was ordering Bucky to tell him all about it.

What Steve thought of most vividly was what it had been like to touch Bucky—holding his wrists, putting his thumb into Bucky’s hot, soft mouth. He wasn’t sure he’d ever actively _liked_ touching someone before, but it had felt so good to lean over Bucky and squeeze him _because Steve wanted to_ , knowing that Bucky wouldn’t try to touch him, or move, or get Steve to do anything in particular. He would just accept what Steve wanted to do.

Steve felt stupidly emotional about this. But when Bucky came in the door, he tried hard to clamp down on it, to somehow look at Bucky without looking at his mouth or ears—all the places Steve wanted to stick his fingers—and then Bucky said, “I figured out another story to tell you, if you want to hear it.”

“Okay,” Steve said.

“Where do you want me while I tell you about it?”

“Oh,” Steve said.

“Or I could make a suggestion,” Bucky said. He sounded so cheerful Steve thought he’d keep talking, but then Bucky paused. “Is that—do you want to hear my suggestions?”

“Sure,” Steve said. “But you know I don’t have to take them.”

“Of course not!” Bucky sputtered. “You don’t have to do anything you—”

“Hold your horses. I mean because you’re not calling the shots here.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s true,” Bucky said. He settled down.

“Out with it,” Steve said.

Bucky smiled at him a little. “Out with it,” he repeated, then—very neatly, like he was reciting a poem at school—“I’d like it if I was on my knees, with my hands behind my back, and it was like you were a king and I was reporting to you. And you wouldn’t act that interested in what I was saying.”

“Why wouldn’t I be interested?”

“Well, you know—” Bucky shrugged one shoulder—“you’ve got important king stuff to do. Not that you have to be a king, but it’s just an example of what you would act like. Like you’re _sort of_ listening, and I’m obligated to tell you, but at the same time I’m—irrelevant.”

“Can’t I just be myself working?” Steve said. He picked up the pen he had put down when Bucky started talking to him.

“I don’t usually get on my knees and report my deepest wishes and fantasies to just— _you_ —when you’re working.”

Steve hunched over the drawing he was inking. He brought a hand up to support his forehead and—not so coincidentally—cover his face. “It’s never too late to start,” he said.

A minute passed. Steve peeked out from behind his hand. Bucky was on his knees with his hands behind his back, looking at Steve expectantly. As Steve looked at him, he grinned with one side of his mouth.

“You’ve got your head held pretty high,” Steve managed to say, “considering your position in life.”

Bucky burst out laughing, ducking his head and shaking; Steve wasn’t sure if it was mostly mirth or mostly nerves. “Where do you want my head?” Bucky asked when most of it had subsided.

“You, um—” Steve considered. He covered his face with his hand again, almost put pen to paper, realized it was a bad idea to do work instead of just pretending to, put his pen down again, and said, “Hands on the floor. Shift yourself forward.” As he put away what he was doing and replaced it with a piece of scrap paper, he glanced over and saw that Bucky was doing as asked. He wasn’t exactly on his hands and knees—just kneeling and leaning forward, at a sharper angle than he could have managed without planting himself on his hands.

“Is this right?” Bucky said.

“It’s fine,” Steve mumbled, pretending to draw. “Actually”—he looked at Bucky—“you’ve still got your head too high. Put it down. Tap the floor with your forehead.”

He dropped his hand then—he had to. Calm-faced, Bucky held himself on his hands and lowered his body slowly, like he was doing push-ups. It was both silly-looking and sort of athletically impressive. When his forehead was against the floor, his face hanging down out of sight, Bucky said in a muffled voice, “Is this where you want me, Steve?”

He sounded so nonchalant that for a moment Steve’s excitement was replaced by a deep peacefulness. They were playing this gentle, stupid game together, and it was the most normal thing in the world. Then he got another idea and he felt like he was licking a battery. “Kiss the floor,” he said.

If Bucky had laughed or hesitated Steve would have quailed—but he kissed it immediately, sort of solemnly and quickly pecking it, and then turned his head to look at Steve, still holding himself just above the floorboards.

“Do it again,” Steve said. Bucky did, and the calm descended again. “Again,” Steve said. “Again.” He could have made Bucky kiss the floor forever, but he got ahold of himself. “Okay, kneel back up. Hands behind your back again.”

Bucky obeyed and looked at him curiously. He was just waiting to see what would happen next.

“Are you ready to tell me?”

Bucky paused, “I guess so,” he said. “I was going over this today, but I’m not sure how to start. Hmm.” He rolled his head around for a second. “Well,” he said, “I guess it all started with—do you know Mr. Stein from the grocery store at Bergen and Flatbush?”

“Yeah, of course,” Steve said.

“Well, he was the first person I ever thought about this way.”

“What? Mr. Stein? But he must be eighty or something!”

“He’s not _that_ old, Steve,” Bucky said. “And this was more than ten years ago, anyway—but that’s not important. The point is, when I was a kid I would always daydream about stealing a piece of candy from the counter, because he had that big sign that said—do you remember—”

“DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT,” Steve said. The sign featured a cartoon that Mr. Stein had drawn, of himself jumping out to grab a candy-stealing boy by the shirt collar and hoist him into the air. Mr. Stein wasn’t the greatest artist, but he got his point across. “Sign’s still there, I think.”

Bucky shook his head. “No, he made a new one. No picture.”

“I guess the sign didn’t work on you,” Steve said. “So what did you think about? Him catching you and grabbing your shirt?”

“At first,” Bucky said, “but then I kept complicating it. As I got older, I added stuff about what he’d do when he caught me, and the things he did kept getting worse. But I’d always think a lot about the first moments of it—deciding to steal, getting caught—and I’d draw out the story, and kind of torture myself by taking so long to get to the point.”

“So what was the point?” Steve asked. He put the back of his hand over his face.

“Uh, usually he’d drag me into the back room and spank me with a ruler.”

“Hm,” Steve said from behind his hand.

Bucky looked at him keenly, or tried to—he couldn’t lean forward without losing his balance, and he couldn’t really see Steve’s face anyway. “Is that—does that bother you? You don’t mind—or do you like it?”

“Stop asking questions,” Steve said, “and tell me more about what you thought about.”

“But—”

“You already came up with what you wanted to tell me, so keep telling me.”

“Well, yeah—but there’s some—” Bucky grimaced. “I just want to warn you, it’s a little queer.”

“And the story yesterday wasn’t? It’s fine. I know I don’t have to do anything. You’re just telling me a story.”

“Really?” Bucky looked about as judgmental as he could look without being able to see Steve to judge him.

Steve took his hand off his face for a minute to glare at Bucky. “Bucky, I’m not going to disintegrate into a million pieces just because you tell me about something queer. I know how you guys do it, I promise. It might not be something I want to do but I don’t think it’s _bad_. Now you better tell me the rest of what you thought about Mr. Stein’s ‘DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT’ sign because it’s my official, royal business.” Bucky cracked a hesitant smile and Steve said, “Seriously. You want to get drawn and quartered for keeping my business from me? You want to get thrown in the dungeon?”

“Those aren’t things I don’t want,” Bucky pointed out, grinning more confidently now. “But you should keep it in mind you can’t do it in that order.”

“Okay, okay—cut me some slack here. Tell me what you thought about, or else.”

Bucky could have kept pushing—Steve was hurriedly trying to compose an answer, if Bucky asked what “or else” meant—but he said, “Okay. I’ll tell you.”

Then he looked right at Steve, even though Steve was behind his hand again, and said, “Well, first I’d just think about getting caught and I didn’t think too much about what would happen. I’d imagine him grabbing me, forcing me into the back room to do— _something_ to me—I’d imagine myself really scared but I couldn’t do anything. He was so much stronger than me.” Before Steve could say anything, Bucky said, “Yeah, I know he’s kind of a weedy guy, but I was—ten, maybe? So I was smaller than him. And besides, that picture really got to me.” He hesitated.

“Go on,” Steve said.

“Well, at first I just thought he’d spank me with my clothes on.” Bucky paused and drew in a long breath, collecting himself—“but the more I thought about it—I realized he’d pull my pants down. And that occupied me for a long time.” He glanced at Steve but kept talking. “I used to think, I’d be so embarrassed for him to do that to me that I’d just die of shame from him seeing my bare ass. I was imagining myself as if I was some sort of nun! When in real life—you know—I’m not the type of person who cares about people seeing me naked, not at all.“

“I know,” Steve said. He had noticed, because he _was_ that type of person himself.

“You know that about me. But the way I’d think about it, it was as if it was this terrible thing. I’d imagine myself crying, begging him to stop, and him just saying, ‘Well, you should have thought about that before.’ I’d imagine him pinning me against a wall or something, or pushing me down and grinding my face into the floor, and over time I came up with this really elaborate set of things I imagined saying to him—something like, ‘Please, Mr. Stein, please don’t do this to me. Please don’t make me do this.’ I’m not—I guess maybe I was thinking about other things, when I was saying, ‘Please don’t make me do this,’ but I didn’t understand what those things were. If someone had asked me, I wouldn’t have had an answer.” Bucky looked kind of sweaty and sick, but it was the way he looked when he read some of the gory monster magazines he liked. He looked up at Steve, catching his breath.

“Keep telling me,” Steve ordered, and it wasn’t hard to say.

“Well, uh—as you know, Ellie and Becca and I shared a room back then, and one night when I was thinking about this, they yelled at me to stop mumbling into my pillow. So I had to stop, because I didn’t realize they could hear me—thank God they couldn’t hear what I was saying. I just loved saying it over and over, cause I’d imagine him pulling them down and—somehow in my head it’d take an eon for him to actually get them off me, and I’d keep saying no, but I wouldn’t move. It was like one of those bad dreams where you can’t move and something is coming after you, except that it was a good dream. Anyway,” Bucky continued, “the next night, I got up and snuck through the kitchen and out onto the fire escape. I curled myself into a little ball so no one could see me from the street, and I put my face in my arm so no one could hear me, and I started saying it again, as much as I wanted. After I said it for a while—”

“Hold up,” Steve said. “After you said what?”

“I just told you,” Bucky said. “I’d ask him to stop pulling my pants down and let me go.”

“I know, stupid,” Steve said. “I want to hear it. All of it. I want to know exactly what you said.”

“Oh,” Bucky said. He looked at Steve and then he continued, very softly and slowly but steadily, “‘Please, Mr. Stein. Please don’t do this to me.’ I’d say, hm... ‘I know I was bad, I know I deserve to be punished, but please don’t pull my pants down. I’m too shy, I can’t stand it if you do that.’ Like I said, I’m very proper in this story. And then I’d imagine that he would get them all the way down and I’d be naked in front of him, and I’d start crying and wailing and saying, ‘Please, sir, please don’t hit me there. You can do anything else to me, but please don’t spank me.”

“You sure are sensitive in this story,” Steve said. “It’s just a spanking, he wasn’t going to flay you.”

Bucky shrugged. “I just liked thinking about being scared and having that be ignored. I liked to imagine that after a while, he’d get so annoyed with my crying that he’d stuff a dirty rag in my mouth. It would taste so awful that I’d almost puke—first I was going to put one of my dirty socks in my mouth, but it distracted me because it tasted so bad, so I had to use a clean one. And so then I’d moan and cry while he was spanking me, but with my mouth full I would just make stupid noises like I was an animal—”

“Is this for real on the fire escape, or in your story?” Steve asked.

“It was both,” Bucky said. “Kind of fed into itself—as I’d hear myself make those noises, around the sock, I’d imagine myself making them with him, and how disgusted he’d be with me and how disgusted I’d be with myself, and—” He paused.

“I didn’t tell you to stop talking,” Steve said.

Bucky gave him a long look, and then swallowed and looked away. “I, well—there I was with a sock in my mouth, making noises and pretending Mr. Stein was about to spank me—”

“Yeah, just like every other red-blooded American boy. Then what?”

“I,” Bucky said. “Well, I was so involved in thinking about the things I would say, as I begged him to let me go, that I barely even noticed I was rubbing myself against the railing. Well, I was trying to, but I couldn’t really get the angle I wanted. All of a sudden, I realized that my dick felt like it was on fire, and so I just reached down in my shorts and grabbed it, and—you know—”

He looked at Steve again, waiting. “Yeah?” Steve said.

“Okay,” Bucky said. “Well, I jizzed all over myself.”

“You liked it that much, huh?”

“I—yeah, I did,” Bucky said. “It happened so fast, pretty much as soon as I started touching myself. It was the first time I ever came in my life, and I was all curled up in a ball on the fire escape and I was all by myself and my shorts were full of this _mess_ —I just felt stupid, and unprepared. I had to figure out how to wash my clothes without waking anyone up.”

There was a pause during which Steve felt an intense and utterly alien desire to comfort Bucky, to get on the floor with him and put his arms around him and stroke his hair. It seemed unbelievably sad to think of Bucky alone and messy and sticky, his carefully constructed fantasy dissipated. Ridiculously, it seemed so sad that Steve could hardly bear it, and he had to—well, he had to do something, but—

There was no way to talk about it. As silly as it was, it just ate Steve up inside to think of Bucky being _alone_ with this part of himself, not having somebody around after he came. Somebody who could tease him and mock him for liking that kind of thing, sure, and for wanting it with a man—but somebody, also, who could wash him up and put him to bed afterwards—briskly, critical, shoving him into the bathtub or under the spray of some shower, toweling him off roughly and telling him Steve was absolutely disgusted with him, and he hoped to God it never happened again—

While hoping to God it would happen again—

Bucky was looking at the floor, and then he wasn’t; and when he raised his eyes to Steve’s, they were anxious. “All this can’t be easy to listen to. Doesn’t it bother you?” he asked.

“I guess it kind of bothers me that it’s about Mr. Stein,” Steve said, but Bucky didn’t smile. “No, come on, Bucky! Why do you think I’m sitting here asking you about it if I don’t like it?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky said. “There’s all kinds of reasons you might think you have to, even if you really don’t want to.”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve said. “I want to hear about it. Why would you think I don’t want to?”

“Well, I just—I’m just thinking,” Bucky said. “Once you told me you don’t like being touched, I realized—you never showed any interest in girls, not really—and you’ve never seemed interested in men. So maybe you just don’t want anything. And I don’t want to be another person making you do things you don’t want to do. I can’t do that. It’s wrong.”

“You’re not making me do things,” Steve said. “You _aren’t_.” But Bucky looked so miserable that Steve put his pretend work away and sat down next to him on the floor. Bucky hadn’t changed the way he was sitting, but it didn’t look right anymore. He sighed, looking deliberately away from Steve. Steve said, “And what other people? I told you I’ve never done this before. Who are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about—” Bucky screwed up his face. “Like people touching you and you don’t say anything.”

“You aren’t touching me.”

“Don’t be dense, Steve. I know you’re not dumb,” Bucky said, sitting back on his heels. “Like you said, you never wanted this before. And you’re not queer, you don’t want _that_ with me, so—I just don’t want to push.”

Steve paused. He wished he could drag Bucky over by the hair and chew on his ears, but he felt Bucky wouldn’t accept that as an answer. “I’m not _not_ queer,” he finally said.

“Hm,” Bucky said.

“But it’s not like I am for _sure_ —I mean, I guess I am, because—well—because there’s you.” Steve swallowed, fixing his gaze on an ugly lump of plaster on the wall, so he could keep talking. “I don’t know what I would have thought or who I would have...wanted—if I’d thought this could happen. Because I just didn’t know. I know now.” He glanced up at Bucky, who was watching him intently, and swallowed again and again. It felt so unfair, that if he just expressed himself wrong Bucky would take it all away. “If I ever thought there was someone who’d—listen to me, and do whatever I say, then—I would have wanted something before. And it’s not _normal_ wanting that, but it’s not queer per se either. It’s just—it would need to be someone like you, and that’s what would matter, I think.”

He knew what it looked like in his head, but he didn’t know how to say it. It was like Steve had this bulwark and as long as it was there, there was no room for wanting things with anyone, because it would feel bad. But the way Bucky was, the dam could break and Steve could be almost knocked over by wanting to touch him. It was like something inside him being let off a leash. He looked helplessly at Bucky.

“I think I understand,” Bucky said. “If there was a girl who treated me the way you do, that’d probably be all right. Better than all the guys who don’t get it and I have to make up a story in my head about how they’re kidnapping me and and they’ll kill me if I don’t go along with it.”

Steve couldn’t help laughing. “Sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Bucky said. “I’m a little much, I know.”

“I like it,” Steve said.

Bucky blinked. “Oh,” he said.

Steve said, “I can’t believe those guys. I can’t believe anyone could hear all the stories you think about and not want to do it to you for real.”

This didn’t feel controversial to say. It wasn’t like wanting to order a guy around or hold his wrists. Those things _were_ kind of stupid and embarrassing, especially for someone like Steve, but he felt like Bucky was objectively fascinating when he started telling his stories, like he was a visitor from a secret alternate world of danger and intrigue. It was so interesting and strange. Of course that level of creativity deserved a reward.

But Bucky looked startled. Maybe he thought it was pathetic for a guy like Steve to imagine himself in the stories—dragging Bucky into the back room wasn’t something Steve could realistically do, physically, for example, and more broadly it was hard to imagine himself striking fear into anyone’s heart. Bucky said, “You—” and then he said, “Well, I—” and then he said, “Well, I didn’t really tell them the stories. If you can call them stories. I just tried to give them the general idea—I’d say, ‘You can do whatever you want to me, and don’t worry about being too mean or rough—’”

“Well there’s your problem. That’s not very specific,” Steve said. It was a relief not to talk about what he wanted. “Maybe what they wanted wasn’t mean or rough. You should have told them what you think about and then they’d understand what you like.”

“That’s true,” Bucky said. “I didn’t really take the right tack with them. But it’s easier with you. You _ask_ me. But—”

He paused, like he didn’t want to say it, so Steve helped: “You think of me as a brother.”

Bucky snorted. “ _That_ ’s hardly the issue.”

“You told me you did, though. It’s okay. You told me right at first.”

“Hm,” Bucky said. He turned a look on Steve that was suddenly piercing. “Do you _want_ me to think of you as a brother?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Steve said. “You can’t help it.”

“Is that what you think?” Bucky said. “Because I can help it. The reason I said that is because I didn’t want you to think I was trying something on you. I never know when a guy’s going to get anxious about me being queer, and you’d have more reason than most—”

“You think I’m _anxious_ about you being queer?” Steve burst out incredulously.

Bucky shrugged. “You never know until you know, Steve. Don’t get mad. No, of course you’re mad. But that’s not exactly why I said that to you, anyway.”

“But you’re saying it was a lie,” Steve said. It felt dangerous to say the words, to even imagine that Bucky might want him.

“It wasn’t a _lie_ lie,” Bucky said. He looked pained. “I wasn’t trying to trick you.” Abruptly, his face smoothed out and he looked up at Steve with an earnestly bland expression. “I guess what I meant is that if you never want—if you never wanted me to touch you, at all, and you didn’t want to touch me and you didn’t want me to want that, that would be fine.”

“So you don’t think of me like that, or you do?”

Bucky wasn’t listening. He shook his head, like the question wasn’t even important. “The point is, if you don’t want me to think of you like that, it would be like I never did. You wouldn’t have to think about it. When you’re telling me what to do, you shouldn’t ever have to worry that I’d be waiting for you to do something else, or that I’d try something. I wouldn’t. It’s good enough for me the way it is.”

“Okay, understood,” Steve said. “Do you think of me like that?”

“Only if you want me to.”

“Of course I _want_ you to!” Steve exploded. “Why else do you think I’m asking so many stupid questions?”

“You do?” Bucky asked.

“Well, sort of,” Steve said, and then hastened to add, “That doesn’t mean I want to do everything you think about. But I’d rather you just tell me and I could say no than that you act weird and secretive. I’m not _anxious_ about you just _thinking_ about something. I want to know.”

“I could tell you and you’d say no?” Bucky said. “Really?”

“Of course I’d say no,” Steve said. “That’d be half the fun, don’t you think?” Bucky blinked at him and he continued, the idea waking up in his mind and building itself, exponentially, “Here, I’ll show you. Ask me for something.”

“Like what?” Bucky said. He looked pretty doubtful—he was going to be hard to convince, but if he’d just let Steve show him—

“Just to kiss me,” Steve said. “That’s not too dramatic, is it?” It would be more fun if it was something worse, but it was still impossible to imagine Bucky asking to suck him or jerk him off.

“Okay, fine,” Bucky said. “Can I kiss you?”

“No,” Steve said. “Ask me again.”

Bucky squinted at him. “Can I kiss you.”

“No, absolutely not. I just said no.”

“What—”

“Ask me again. And say please this time.”

Bucky gave him a long look, but he said, “Steve, could I please kiss you?”

“No! Stop asking me that. What’s wrong with you? Ask me again.”

“Please—”

“Say you need it.”

“Please. I need you to let me.” Bucky leaned toward Steve, for emphasis—which was great, since he clearly wasn’t trying to move towards him at all.

“Never,” Steve said. “You sure are desperate. These guys aren’t doing it for you? They’re not giving you enough?”

There was silence. Bucky looked at him; Steve nodded, and Bucky said, “No—please, Steve, please. They’re not. Let me. I need—”

“See,” Steve said. “Like that. Saying no to you is fun. I like it.”

“Huh.” Bucky said. He rolled his shoulders. “To be fair, there is something in that.” Smiling at Steve, he said, “You’re good at this.”

“Oh, never mind that,” Steve said. “I don’t need that. I’m just saying—it’s true, I might not want to be touched ever, and I might or might not be queer. But I like…taking things away from you, I guess—so, when you think about it, the more you want, the better it is for me.” This was the closest he could come to a huge system of feeling that was threatening to bubble over inside him all the time when he heard about what Bucky liked. Aside from doing it, just having access to that secret world was good on its own. “Because the more things you think about, the more I can ask you about them and tease you, and the more you want, the more I can’t let you have. You see? So it’s good for you to want whatever you want.”

“It is?” Bucky asked. His voice was uncharacteristically soft.

“Of course it is,” Steve said. He scooted over to where Bucky was sitting.

“It doesn’t bother you. Really.”

“No,” Steve said. “C’mere.” He opened his arms and Bucky, wonderfully, didn’t hug him back. He kept his hands flat on the floor and leaned forward into Steve’s arms, resting his face in Steve’s shoulder. He felt big, heavy and precious, against Steve’s body. Steve wrapped an arm around him and squeezed and said, “You really think about me like that?” He felt Bucky stiffen in his arms and said, “No. Relax.” Steve felt infinitely, anxiously gentle, like he was carrying a very full glass of water.

“I do think about you like that,” Bucky said.

“What do you think about?”

There was another pause and—not thinking it was the right time to interrogate or demand things of him—Steve stroked his hand slowly down Bucky’s back, from his neck to the bottom knobs of his spine. He kept his hand down there. It was lower than he’d touched Bucky before, back when he had to touch him, before he wanted to.

Finally Bucky said, “I try not to think about—fucking, or anything, but—I do think about you hurting me, and…I really like thinking about you touching me all over, if I couldn’t move. I dreamed about it the other night.”

“Did you come?” Steve asked, which was maybe kind of a naive question, but he wanted to hear it.

“I did. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Steve said. He fisted a hand in Bucky’s hair and used it to gently pull Bucky’s head up, to look him in the face. “I’m the one who decides when you should be sorry. You really thought I’d be mad?”

“I just,” Bucky said, and he tried to move his head so he could look away, but Steve held him still so he couldn’t, “I didn’t want you to think I’m trying to get something from you. I never want that.”

Steve stroked one hand down the side of Bucky’s face, slowly and firmly, while he held his hair with the other. A shiver went through him—he loved touching Bucky’s face like that, like the way he would touch a favorite book—but he made himself talk. “Buck, I never—I don’t think that of you. You’re the best person I know. I know you wouldn’t make me do anything.”

Bucky looked at him, a familiar annoying look like he knew everything about Steve down to his core and had an opinion on all of it. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Maybe I just like this.”

The look kept going until Steve didn’t know what Bucky was thinking. Finally he said, in such a calm and determined way that it felt wrong to be holding him like he was a thing, “Okay. I believe you.”

“Good,” Steve said.

“You want me to tell you more?”

“The—wait. There’s more? About Mr. Stein?”

Bucky nodded. It made Steve’s fingers shift up and down his face.

“About after you came?” Bucky nodded again, and Steve was surprised how good it all felt. He didn’t think he’d be comfortable saying it, but he liked it so much that he said it again. “Tell me about how it makes you come, Buck. Tell me how you get off to it.” Bucky’s eyes flicked up to his, and Steve said, “Come on. I like it. It’s entertaining to me, like a freak show.”

Bucky inhaled sharply, and then he moved his head to kiss Steve’s hand. He glanced at Steve’s face again, as if checking that that was allowed. Steve didn’t mind it, but he gripped Bucky’s head harder, anyway, so he couldn’t do it again.

“Go on.”

And Bucky started talking again.

He told Steve that once he’d made it through the awkward sticky night, the awkwardness and stickiness suffused his fantasy and—up until he came, anyway—made it better and better. From then on, he’d be begging Mr. Stein to let him keep his clothes on not merely because he was modest but because he was already hard from being grabbed and hauled into the storage room—

“I’d get even more detailed,” Bucky said, “thinking about”—and then he paused, flicking his eyes up at Steve’s hand holding his hair—

“Show me,” Steve said. “He’d pull your hair?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Bucky said, and then with a tilt of his head he showed Steve which way to pull. When Steve tugged on him, then paused, Bucky said, “Like that, but harder—hard enough to force my head up, if I’d been keeping my head down, because—”

“Oh, I see, because you’re _embarrassed_ ,” Steve said. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to feel like _that_ —”

He felt like he had to mentally force his own arm to make himself do it, but he gave Bucky’s hair a brutal yank that pulled his head to the side and almost all the way back. Bucky emitted a soft yelpy sound that made Steve drop his hair in alarm, but then Bucky took advantage of his freedom of movement to turn his head and kiss Steve’s wrist. “Thank you,” he said with his head down. “I’m glad you get it.”

“Get what?” Steve said, taking hold of his hair again and—just as forcefully, but slower, so Bucky could pretty much comply with it—pulling Bucky’s head up so they could look in each other’s eyes. “The kind of handling you need?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, nodding enthusiastically, which made him wince. To Steve’s delight he realized that he’d raised his hand a little higher than he’d intended to, so that Bucky was having to raise himself up, awkwardly, on his knees.

Time stuttered; Steve had to just look at Bucky being held like that, at himself holding Bucky like that. A shiver passed through him.

When Steve was able to take in details again, he saw that without being asked Bucky had lowered his eyes. He wasn’t watching Steve’s excitement; he was letting him have his privacy.

Steve badly wanted a way to express what he was feeling, besides stroking his free hand over Bucky’s face over and over again, firmly. He settled for saying, “Well, tell me. Show me. What else would he do to you as he dragged you to the back room to punish you for, uh—“

“Candy,” Bucky said, with a quick glance up. “Stealing candy.”

“That’s not what it _really_ was, though, was it?” Steve said. He pulled Bucky’s head up a little more. “What is it? What’s the real reason you deserve to be hurt?”

Bucky beamed. “I’m disgusting,” he said, like he was announcing his candidacy for mayor. “I love being treated like garbage.”

“You look pretty happy about it,” Steve said. “You think there’s something normal or okay about that? Look at me, scumbag.”

His face gone serious, Bucky made eye contact. “No, Steve,” he said. “I don’t think it’s okay. I’m ashamed of it, in fact. I really—” He pulled one side of his lip into his teeth, very appealingly. “I need someone to teach me a lesson.”

“Is that like the bath story?” Steve asked. With one hand in his lap he hunched forward, dragging the other hand out of Bucky’s hair and down to cup his chin— _don’t stick yourfingers in his ears when you’re trying to get something out of him_ , he strictly told himself. _You’ll forget all about it._ “You think you want it, you think about all this repulsive stuff, but then when someone really goes through with treating you like the trash you are, you’re too weak to handle it and you start trying to fight back.”

This didn’t strike the nerve Steve had hoped for; Bucky just said, “Okay,” pleasantly pushing his face into Steve’s hand. This meant Steve’s nerves were the ones being struck—it actually hurt, a twist in his gut like losing his balance when he was leaning back in a chair.

Bucky said—kissing Steve’s palm very quickly, like it was a token required of him before he was allowed to talk—“He’d also box my ears for whining and fighting back. Just kind of distractedly because I’m not that important. He’d quickly adjust himself so he was holding me by the back of my shirt instead of by my hair, and he’d whack me on the side of the head. It wouldn’t have to be hard. It’d just be to get a message across.”

When he looked up expectantly Steve leaned over him, adjusting, like Bucky said—one hand pinching his shirt, and—

“Doesn’t have to be hard,” Bucky said again. “A tap is fine—it’s the principle of the thing.”

So Steve tapped him. He kept tapping him, like he was playing the bongos, and as he was tapping he said, “Like this? So when you say that, do you mean you don’t want me to hit you harder, or that I don’t _have_ to hit you harder?”

“Whatever you want to do,” Bucky said. He leaned his head to the side to receive the taps, sort of like he was a girl in a movie tipping her face up to be kissed.

“That’s not an answer,” Steve said. He stopped tapping and grabbed Bucky’s hair again. “Take it as written you’re a pathetic little freak who’s grateful for _any_ correction, including tapping. Would you like it if I can do it harder?”

“Um,” Bucky said. He grinned with his lips inside his mouth. “The, uh, pathetic little freak would—can I move one of my arms for a second?” He brought his hand forward and held his thumb and index finger half an inch apart. “I’d slightly prefer it, a _little_ , if the punishment hurt.”

He put it back behind his back. Steve hung onto Bucky by his hair, like the hair was somehow helping him keep his balance, and smacked him with the back of his hand. “Harder?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” Bucky said. He was beaming. Steve hit him, with the palm of his hand this time. Bucky was watching him. Steve tried to hit him harder and Bucky said, “Yes!” and Steve hit him hard enough that he would have knocked him back if he hadn’t been holding his hair. Bucky hissed when his hair caught him.

“Like that?”

“Yes,” Bucky said.

“You need that, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “So then, uh—” He blinked, and a smile twisted up one side of his mouth. “I—so, the next thing that happens is—”

“Oh, you’re still telling me the story,” Steve said. “Okay, what happens next?”

“Well, you—” Bucky said. “I mean, he—” He laughed. “Oops. Mr. Stein. He’s pulling me to the back room, and I’m so scared, and he’s hitting me and everything. Yeah, he gets me in there, he starts to pull down my pants, I’m crying for him to stop. But now the reason that I want him to stop is different. I’m ashamed for him to see that I’m hard, that I’m excited by what he’s doing to me.”

“That _is_ different,” Steve said.

“Yeah. So, uh, he’d get all my clothes off, and as I’d be standing there he’d—inspect me, and he’d see that I was hard. And he’d be angry with me—or maybe disappointed in me, I was never sure which I liked better—and he’d say—‘so you’re a queer.’ I’d be crying and trying to cover myself and he’d say—you can probably guess this, Steve—‘no hiding.’ And he asks me if I know what queers are good for.”

Bucky paused. Steve gave him a little push on the temple, like he was pushing it out of Bucky’s brain. “Come on, I’m in suspense. You know I don’t know about this kind of stuff.” Daringly, he added, “I didn’t think you were good for anything.”

“So funny I forgot to laugh,” Bucky said. “Anyway. He tells me I’m only good for being fucked.”

“Well, that was my first guess,” Steve said.

“I never said I was creative!” Bucky said. “So, he tells me that if a man can’t find a woman, or if he’s too rough for a woman, then that’s where I come in. That you can really hurt a queer and it doesn’t matter, and you can just throw him away like trash and he’ll be grateful.”

“That sounds like you,” Steve said, stroking his hair. It was hard to keep his affection in, sometimes, when Bucky said really predictable things.

“My idea was,” Bucky said, “he’d have me bend over the table and he’d ask me if I wanted to—to be used that way. I’d say yes, please. I’d beg for it, I’d get really desperate and I’d think he was going to fuck me—but then he wouldn’t.”

There was a short pause—something must have shown in Steve’s face. He hadn’t been expecting that. Bucky looked at him, but when Steve didn’t say anything, Bucky kept talking.

“He’d say that he couldn’t do it—that when it came down to it, he just couldn’t stand to touch me. It really put him off that I wanted it so much. And he’d be so disgusted by me, I guess, that he’d throw me out back in the trash heap. I know there’s no trash heap behind the store, but there would be one. And I’d be lying there, and people would walk by and see me, naked and crying and begging for it, and I’d beg _them_ to use me and no one would want to, because I wanted it _so much_.”

“Oh,” Steve said.

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “So, do you—”

“I always like hearing what you think about,” Steve said.

“Yeah, but—”

“Do you really think about that?” Steve asked. “I mean—someone saying no to you, and just leaving you?”

“I just told you,” Bucky said.

“Did you make it up for me?”

“No,” Bucky said. He smirked, slowly. “But I thought—in light of what you said earlier—maybe you’d like that. Do you like it?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Steve said. “Not as much as you do, of course.” He looked at Bucky, and he could see Bucky understood. Steve tugged Bucky’s face toward him, and kissed him on the forehead. “Filthy queer,” he said experimentally, and kissed him again.

///

Bucky kept telling Steve stories—sometimes every few days, sometimes two or three in one day, which was dizzying. By the end of the third story, Steve would feel as if he couldn’t stand up. Bucky would talk, and Steve would tell him how to sit and what to do with his body while he was talking, and he would push Bucky when he got shy, and tease him about the perversity of the things he said.

Bucky didn’t ask or try for anything more, but most of the time he got hard while he was telling the stories. Steve got brave enough to look down at the bulge in Bucky’s pants, pointedly, and he’d be on the verge of talking about it, initiating something or at the very least making fun of how much Bucky was enjoying himself. But Bucky, upon seeing where Steve was looking, would quickly carry on talking, or even sometimes get up and leave the room.

It was nice, and respectful, and very considerate; but it wasn’t exactly what Steve wanted. A person couldn’t help wondering what Bucky would be like if you got him too excited and desperate to adhere to his standards of correct behavior. Steve really worked himself up, thinking about touching Bucky or making Bucky touch himself; but he didn’t know if Bucky wanted that, or how to start asking. And before he could decide what to do about _that_ issue, Steve found another one—he’d been thinking so much that he now had stories of his own.

So one night when they were sitting as they’d started to regularly sit—Steve reading or working at his desk, Bucky reading on the floor with Steve’s hand in his hair—Steve found himself giving Bucky a little yank, pulling his attention away from his paperback.

“Ow,” Bucky said, but he looked at Steve attentively and didn’t complain.

“I have a story for you,” Steve said. “If you want to hear it.”

“Of course,” Bucky said. He put his book down and shoved it so hard that it skimmed across the floor and into the wall. “I’m all ears.”

“You need to have a mouth for this story, too,” Steve said.

“Oh,” Bucky said. “Well, okay. Cripes, Steve. You’ve never told me a story before.”

“You don’t have to say you like it if you don’t,” Steve said. “You can just tell me what you think—if you like it or not, or if you’d like it if it was a little different, or—”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky said. “If you could hear yourself, Steve! If I said that to you you’d pitch a fit.”

Steve glared at him. When he felt like his glare had been appropriately acknowledged he said, “Okay, so. I was thinking about your bath story, how you talked about the guy, uh, putting his dick in your mouth and choking you and hurting you, and, well—”

Steve’s head swam. This was harder than it looked. Bucky smiled at him encouragingly and didn’t say anything.

“You don’t, um, I won’t make you do that, but what if you really wanted to? And you, just—well, because you’re a freak you can’t help it.” Steve paused and Bucky nodded. “So, even if I kept telling you no, you’d want it so much that you’d beg me. You’d even—” He had all the words in his head, but he couldn’t say them. He felt this must be constitutionally easier for Bucky than it was for him.

Bucky said, “Hey Steve, I’m imagining this is going to be really horrible. I’m hoping it will be—you know what a freak I am. So you better not say anything too polite or normal.”

“I just—”

“Or if it _is_ polite or normal, you could torture me with that, I guess—”

“No,” Steve said. “It’s not. Well, I’d wake up and you—don’t ever do anything like this, I wouldn’t like it—but you’d have climbed half up on my bed and you’d be sucking my dick, because you just can’t help it. You thought maybe if you showed me how good you are, I’d change my mind.”

“Hm,” Bucky said. Unsurprisingly, his forehead had wrinkled up.

“Hey, I don’t want you to do it,” Steve repeated. “The point is, I’d wake up and you’d have your mouth around me, and I’d—I’d throw you off me, I’d hit you and you’d fall off the bed. You’d, uh”—dialogue began unfurling itself also—“you’d try to climb back up on the bed, but I’d smack you in the face and tell you that you’re not allowed up there.” That, he thought, might go over well, and when he glanced at Bucky he saw that he was starting to smile. “Because you’re dirty,” he continued, “because—because queers don’t get to use the furniture like a real person. Queers belong on the floor.”

Bucky laughed outright at that, and Steve fisted a hand in his hair, holding Bucky’s head up and still, bolstering himself to get through the rest.

“Excuse me, I’m telling you what _I_ think about, this isn’t _your turn_ ,” he said, out of comfortable habit. “In fact, if it was up to me, freaks like you would know your place and not get a turn at all.”

Bucky laughed again, softer. It was _nice_ having habits between them, Steve realized, and they already had a lot of them—Steve saying Bucky didn’t matter, that he was sick; hanging onto Bucky’s hair. They knew what they were doing. Nothing either of them had to say could really mess it up that badly.

“Anyway,” he said, “I’d push you onto the floor, and I’d stand up and start kicking you. I’d be kicking you, telling you how disgusting you are, how I don’t want your plague-ridden mouth on my dick giving me a disease, and I think you’d be apologizing and crying and cringing away from me—and I’d tell you to stay still and let me kick you, because you deserve it, and thank me, because I’m just teaching you a lesson.”

“Are you kicking me with your shoes on?” Bucky asked.

“Well, we couldn’t really do it with my shoes on,” Steve said. “But in the story, yeah, I guess,” he added, after Bucky had raised an eyebrow as much as he could.

“Do I have clothes on or not?”

“What do you prefer?”

“No clothes, please,” Bucky said.

“All right,” Steve said. “I think clothes are just about as appropriate for queers as furniture is. So, _anyway_ , you’d be lying there crying, and naked, like a wet little worm—” He paused for a second. He felt some childish urge build up in him, the urge to break things just to see what would happen, even though Steve hadn’t been that type of child. “Would you let me call you that?”

“What?”

“A—what I just said.”

“A worm? Sure.”

A pause grew and grew. Steve couldn’t get his mind to keep going. “Would you say it?” he asked.

He thought Bucky was going to tease him, and he couldn’t blame him, but he also felt like he wouldn’t be able to stand it. Instead Bucky looked at him, moved his mouth around for a second like he was doing math, and then said carefully, “I’m a worm. That’s what I am. I’m just a pathetic, dirty worm.”

The way he said it was amazing. He made his eyes really big and sad, and his voice trembled, and it was like Steve was forcing him to say it, like Bucky hated saying it but Steve was threatening him or something, but the sadness made it even worse, like he suspected it was true and he was ashamed of himself. “Thank you,” Steve heard himself saying dopily.

“It’s no trouble,” Bucky said in a normal voice. “Was that how you wanted me to say it?”

“Yes,” Steve said immediately, even though he hadn’t known how he wanted Bucky to say it until he did. “How did you get to be so good at that?”

Bucky started to smile and then looked embarrassed. “Well, I told you I practiced saying things in bed sometimes when I was a kid. I still do. Sometimes I do it in front of the mirror.”

“But you never practiced saying _that_ before.”

“No.”

“Sorry I’m not much of an actor,” Steve said.

“No need to be. You’re scary all the time.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Okay, you’re not scary at all,” Bucky said easily. “Do I get to hear the rest of the story?”

“There’s not really much else,” Steve said. “Well, I guess one thing is that—” Bucky was watching him in such a neutral, uninvested way that Steve knew he was acting again. “It’s—you don’t have to.”

“I know,” Bucky said. “I’m not the one who’s confused about that.”

“Asshole,” Steve said.

“Really, Steve, whatever it is, it’s not going to kill you to just say it. Are you thinking about eating me or something? Just tell me, I don’t care.”

“Of course I’m not thinking about _eating_ you!” Steve said. “God, I just wanted you to lick my shoes.”

“Well, of course I can lick your shoes,” Bucky said. “That’s really it?” Steve nodded. “Of course I can do that,” Bucky said. “That’s fine. _Steve_.” His face was so warm and kind it was a little hard for Steve to look at him. “I’ll lick your shoes as much as you want.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Well, a minute ago I thought you wanted to roast me over an open fire,” Bucky said. “You were acting so secretive. So—this is good. Is it part of the same story?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I feel sorry for you, because you want to suck my dick so much, and—well, I guess you need _something_ to do with your mouth, so I have you clean my shoes. And you—you—”

“What?” Bucky said. “ _Then_ you eat me.”

“Shut up. You’re—you’re grateful,” Steve said. “You thank me for using you for something.”

“I can’t thank you, my mouth would be busy,” Bucky said. “I could look at you gratefully. Do you want me to cry with gratitude?”

“Can you cry on purpose?”

“I’m not sure,” Bucky said. “I bet I could learn, though. Or—onions? We could put onions on your shoes.”

Steve laughed, but he also said, “You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Bucky said. “You want me to, though.”

“But you don’t have to do all this elaborate stuff because I want to.”

“Steve,” Bucky said. “What was it you said, the other week? It was—the thing that was unusually sweet.”

“I didn’t say anything sweet,” Steve said.

“I’m sure you did,” Bucky said. “My eyes about popped out of my head. You said—you liked hearing about what I think about so much, you couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to do it to me if I told them. Right?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, “and then you told me that you never told any of the guys you’re always complaining about, so they didn’t even have a chance of getting it right, which is—something.”

“Oh, shut up,” Bucky said. “I’m trying to tell you, it goes both ways. I want to lick your shoes, okay? Because it’s what you want and I want to give it to you.”

It didn’t seem like the same thing at all. “But I’m not as interesting as you are,” Steve protested.

Bucky sighed laboriously. “Okay. Sure you’re not. I’m not getting anywhere with this, but—you’re interesting to me too. I just don’t call you a freak show because I’m polite.”

“Do you not want me to call you that?” Steve asked.

“Of course I want you to. You know me better than that, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, and when Bucky paused and looked at him, he pulled Bucky’s head up gently by the hair and said, “You’re my freak show. Say it.”

“I’m your freak show,” Bucky said, with this funny nervous giggle, and Steve stroked down his face, holding him by the side of the jaw.

“I’m never giving you most of the things you want, queer. You’re disgusting. I just think it’s—entertaining, seeing how perverted you are.” Steve pushed his thumb in the corner of Bucky’s mouth. “You make me sick.”

There was a pause and then Bucky said, “Would you—” at the same time Steve said, “Can I—” and two of Steve’s fingers ended up in Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky was sucking them like it was something really important.

“You’re disgusting,” Steve said again. He wished he had a thesaurus. “Another one,” he said and pushed his ring finger in there. Bucky took it. He had his eyes closed and his cheeks were funny and hollowed out looking and he’d actually sucked guys dicks’ and this was what he looked like when he did it. He’d suck Steve’s, if he wanted, but only if he wanted. Steve’s stomach was kicking around.

He was trying to think of more things to say when Bucky pulled off and said, “Want to pull my hair? You can.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I also—can I shove them in deeper, like in the story?”

“No, it’s better if I just—we can pretend, but it’s better for me to control how much goes into my mouth. That way I don’t end up trying to fit more than I can take in there.”

“Okay,” Steve said. That did seem safer.

“It’s, see”—Bucky rubbed his throat—“so if I was sucking a cock I’d lean my head back, so my throat’s open really wide, and there’s room for the head to push in it at the back of my mouth. But if someone tried to push it in when I wasn’t in the right position, I’d probably gag and spit his dick right back out.”

“Has anyone ever tried that?”

“Well, no,” Bucky said. “And I wouldn’t want them to. But—” He smiled sneakily.

“But you like thinking about it,” Steve said. “So what would _he_ do? I bet he’d push into your mouth without caring what it’s like for you, and when you gag on it he’d slap you and say you don’t have a choice, you have to take it no matter what. He’d tell you that you’ll be severely punished if you don’t take it in as deep as he wants right away.”

“Severely punished!” Bucky said happily. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a punishment encyclopedia,” Steve said. “What do you think it is?”

Bucky thought about it. “Honestly, I really don’t care.”

Steve paused. Then he grabbed Bucky’s hair and pronounced, “Bucky, you’d better let this guy ram his dick down your throat as much as he wants, or you’ll be _severely punished_. Okay?” He shook Bucky gently from side to side, like he was a rag doll.

“Psst—he wouldn’t call me Bucky,” Bucky said. “Didn’t we agree he calls me ‘boy?’”

“Oh, okay,” Steve said. “Open up, _boy_. Bucky, I’m just going to put my fingers in and not move them, and you can do what you told me about. Here.”

Bucky opened up, which made Steve’s heart jump all of the sudden, for some reason, and he put his fingers back in, between Bucky’s lips. The nicest thing was that Bucky started stroking them with his tongue and he closed his eyes when he did it, like he loved doing it, like he was concentrating really hard.

“So,” Steve said, “I—” and then he stopped, because Bucky moved forward, taking Steve’s fingers into the back of his mouth. “I—uh, Bucky—no, not Bucky—I mean, you disgusting something-or-other—”

To Steve’s surprise, Bucky didn’t laugh at or even acknowledge Steve’s mistake. His eyes were still closed, and he started to slowly move his head forward and back, releasing a few inches of Steve’s fingers and then taking them back in his mouth so he was sucking at the bases of them. Steve could just imagine how it must be for a guy to look down and see Bucky sucking his dick with those motions and that look of being completely absorbed in the service he was providing.

Steve felt his dick shivering like it was haunted, but he managed to yank Bucky’s hair—not hard enough to distract him, but hard enough that a shiver passed through him too.

Good. He deserved to be hurt, looking like that.

“You’re mine,” Steve said, badly rummaging through his mental catalogue of what Bucky might like him to say at a time like this. “This is what you’re for. I’m going to make you do it _every day_ , for as long as I want—for hours, if I want—and you don’t have a choice.”

He hesitated, worrying that nothing he said was sounding at all convincing. He decided he was going to snarl, _Take it, you pathetic freak_ , but as he was practicing the snarl in his head, Bucky pulled off Steve’s fingers and said, “Steve, excuse me—I gotta stop.”

“Yeah, of course—we said you have to control it,” Steve said. He was surprised a person could ever stand having their mouth full of anything for as long as Bucky just had. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Bucky said. “It’s just we’ve been talking about this for a long time, and—that was—I have to step out for a minute.”

“You’re going to jerk off!” Steve exclaimed in a flash of insight.

“Well, obviously.”

“You haven’t done that when we’ve talked before.”

“I haven’t?” Bucky said. “I tried to wait until later, but sometimes I can’t wait, and I have to leave.” A guilty look crossed his face. “I’m sorry if that bothers you. I try not to think about you too much, in case you don’t want me to.”

“Bucky, come on. Cut that out. You know I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.” Steve wiped his spitty fingers on his knee because he suddenly felt he couldn’t wipe them on Bucky’s face. A minute ago that would have been completely natural to do. “It’s fine if you think about me. I don’t care. I mean, I _do_ care.” He was too polite to even stroke Bucky’s hair now. This was so stupid. “Actually,” he said, forcing himself to grab a hank of hair again, “I’d like to put in a special request that you _do_ think about me. Okay?”

“You don’t have to—”

“Do it. Okay?”

“Okay,” Bucky said, getting to his feet. Then he paused standing there and said, “So, I’m going to go jerk off now, and I’m going to think about you being mean to me and hurting me, and—and using me for whatever you want. I’m going to go in the bathroom and do that. I’m going now.”

He just stood there looking at Steve. Then Steve surprised himself; he stood up and grabbed Bucky by the shoulders. “Do it in front of me,” he said, and he was surprised by the aggression in his own voice. “Show me. I want to see. Get back down on the floor, right now.”

He pushed Bucky’s shoulders, and Bucky went, and then Bucky was kneeling on the floor and looking up at him, and they were holding hands. “Really?” Bucky said, with a surprisingly smug expression.

“Yeah,” Steve said, and then he knew. Bucky had wanted to do this together, but he’d wanted Steve to decide for—well, for a myriad of various Bucky reasons, all of which Steve kind of understood by now or at least could work with. Steve let go of Bucky’s hands, sat back in his chair, and said briskly, “Kneel up. Hands behind your back. Get a little closer to me.” He reached for Bucky’s belt and started undoing it.

Upon hearing a noise and looking up from his work, Steve saw that Bucky was emitting a sort of wheeze. It was like a combination of nervous laughter and gasping. Steve hadn’t even done anything.

Resorting to his standby, he once again grabbed Bucky’s hair and yanked his head to one side. “Are you having second thoughts?” he said. “It’s too late now.”

“No, it’s okay,” Bucky said. “I understand. I don’t have a choice.”

“Seriously, though,” Steve said.

“I’m yours,” Bucky said.

Steve pushed Bucky’s pants and shorts down; Bucky started to shift around to try and get them off the rest of the way, but Steve shook his head. “No. Like this.” It would have been hard to articulate exactly what Steve thought was so perfect about pushing them down just above Bucky’s knees, so he could see Bucky’s dick which looked painfully hard and eager. It looked shiny. Steve ran a finger over it, hoping Bucky would wheeze some more, but even though his hips moved slightly, tilting closer to Steve, he didn’t make a sound.

He was biting his lip. The cheat! “Stop that,” Steve said, taking his finger off and poking it in Bucky’s mouth instead. “You can’t bite your lip. What if I want to put something in your mouth? Leave it open.”

He moved his hand back and waited until Bucky let his mouth fall open.

“Good. You can talk, I just don’t like that biting. Anyway.” Steve put his hand back on Bucky. “What’s all this about? You’re ready to blow, and I don’t really understand how you got that way. What’s got you so excited?”

He meant that he wanted them to talk some more, that he’d get Bucky to tell him exactly what he liked best about what they’d been doing, what had pushed him over the edge so he couldn’t wait; but Bucky just said, “You.”

“It’s not _me_. It’s just nobody’s learned what you like before,” Steve said.

“Okay, fine,” Bucky said—he looked annoyed now, out of nowhere, which Steve thought was unfair. He’d obviously been angling for information, not compliments.

“Anyway,” he said. He reached back down—Bucky’s dick was a little deflated, but when he petted it with his finger it perked back up again. He tried to rephrase his question. “Tell me what you think about. Tell me again. Being stripped—we’ve got that—but we’re not doing a good job making it against your will. You want to say no to me?”

“Please stop,” Bucky said unconvincingly.

“Nope. More.”

“Please stop. Please don’t do this to me. I can’t.”

“Sure you can, queer,” Steve said. “Now I’m going to make you touch yourself the way you do when you think about all the repulsive stuff you like, because I want to see how you do it. You’re allowed use of one of your hands—or both, if you need both—”

“I just need one,” Bucky said. “The right one, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead,” Steve said. He removed his finger but, daringly, when Bucky wrapped his hand around his dick, he put his hand on Bucky’s wrist. He held on, and when Bucky looked at Steve’s hand, and then looked up at him, Steve said, “Go ahead. Didn’t you hear me?”

He couldn’t have said why he wanted so badly to hold Bucky’s wrist when he jerked off, but there was something about the way it looked when Bucky’s hand started moving with Steve’s hand over it—like the only way Bucky got to touch himself was under Steve’s supervision. It made his voice tremble a little when he was trying to be cutting and cruel. “So this is what you do? When you’re thinking about men hitting you and using you and dragging you down the hall to punish you? You play with yourself like this?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said breathlessly. He jerked himself for a minute, and then his hand paused. “But I usually—I usually stop partway through, to make it last longer. So I get more eager. It feels better if I have to wait.” Carefully, he took his hand off himself, and turned it around so he and Steve were just holding hands on the air. “And I—would you talk to me, Steve? You keep asking me to tell you things. But would you tell me a story?”

“But I don’t want to ruin it,” Steve said.

“You won’t ruin it. I’ll just tell you how to fix it if you go the wrong way.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “So you want a story about a guy telling you that you’re really special and important and he’ll do whatever you want?”

“Yeah, just like that,” Bucky said. “And he should be really nice to me—the nicest.”

“And he _loves_ queers.”

“Oh, yes,” Bucky said. “More than his own family. He _cherishes_ me.”

It was hard not to kiss him. “I’m thinking,” Steve said. He let go of Bucky’s hand. “Put that back behind your back while you’re not using it. Touching me with that dirty thing without asking—pretty presumptuous.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said. “I would bow and scrape, but I assume I’m not allowed to move.”

“Shush,” Steve said. “Okay. You’re in the same position you’re in now, but you’re tied up. Your arms are tied behind your back, I mean, I don’t know about your legs. I think it’s the rules that you have to always be kneeling.” Steve thought for a minute, considering what kind of man might be in the story, and then he said, “It’s the bath guy. He’s kept you at his house for a while, in this little closet, using your mouth whenever he wants.” What had Bucky said? “You’ve got dried come on your face, and your jaw hurts all the time because he’s so rough on you, and your eyes are always red, because you’ve been crying—well, during, of course, because it hurts so much, but also the rest of the time. You’re so ashamed about what he’s made you into.”

“This story is really sad,” Bucky said.

“Well, it’s a delicate balance with you.” Steve wrapped his hand gently around Bucky’s dick. “May I?”

“You can, but I need it tighter than that to get off.”

“I’m not trying to make you get off,” Steve said, sliding his hand up and down it slowly. He was just trying to keep Bucky hard because his story wasn’t turning out that good. “Don’t be bossy. This isn’t for you.”

Steve thought Bucky was laughing at him because what he’d said didn’t make any sense, but he was actually doing that enthusiastic wheezing again. So he said, “You think you can just tell me how to touch you? That I care about what you want? Of course I don’t. You don’t deserve to feel good at all.” He removed his hand and Bucky made an unhappy noise. “I thought you didn’t like it!” Steve protested.

“It’s better than nothing.”

“Well, I’m not the one who decided you should stop jerking off.”

“We could pretend you decided, though,” Bucky said. “Because—”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Steve said. “Because then you still get to complain.”

“Exactly,” Bucky said. “Yeah, so, anyway, in this story, I think I’m hard. Right? Don’t you think so?”

“Sure,” Steve said. “You might _act_ like you don’t want it, but of course you do. You love having a man use you and then just leave you alone, like you’re just a tool he puts away when he’s done with it. And you especially love having him in your mouth—I think that’s the real reason you’re crying when he leaves you alone, because your mouth is empty.”

“And also,” Bucky said, “I can’t—I can’t move. I wouldn’t be able to touch myself.”

“That’s true,” Steve said. “I bet you’d look just like you do right now, all the time.” He rested his hand lightly on Bucky’s dick, and when Bucky tried to rub against him he said, “No! What are you doing? It’s none of your business what happens to it.” He started lightly stroking it again, the same way Bucky had told him wouldn’t work. “You’d be so desperate. I bet you’d beg him to touch you, but of course he wouldn’t. That isn’t what you’re for.”

He took his hand off Bucky and brought it up to his mouth, sticking his thumb in. It might have been more intense if he put in all his fingers again, but doing it with just his thumb felt cozy. Bucky looked at him steadily, hollowing his cheeks to suck. Then—making sure Steve was looking—he very deliberately brought his right hand forward, moving it towards his dick.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Steve yelled at him, pulling his thumb out of Bucky’s mouth and whacking him on the face. “Put your hands where they belong. No. Wait.” He got up and crouched down behind Bucky on the floor, grabbing his wrists and saying coldly into his ear: “I guess you can’t control yourself. You need me to keep you from moving, huh?”

“I do,” Bucky agreed. “I need you to do that.” He hadn’t even been anywhere near touching himself, not really; he just wanted to be stopped. Steve couldn’t help kissing him on the side of his ear. He was so funny. “Steve,” Bucky said.

“Sorry.”

“What? No. I just—I think he’d get mad at me for getting hard and wanting to come and stuff. Don’t you?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Steve said.

With one hand he held Bucky’s wrists; with the other he reached in front of him and gripped his hip, letting his fingers get pretty close to Bucky’s balls, but not actually touching them. “ _Steve_!” Bucky said.

“What? Don’t interrupt, I’m trying to answer your question. I think he’d think it’s disgusting, when you’re just there for him to touch, that you’d enjoy it. That you’d want something for yourself. If you move your hands you’ll be sorry.” Steve let go of Bucky’s wrists so he could hold onto his hips on both sides. He was crouching so he could put his chest against Bucky’s back, tuck his head over Bucky’s shoulder, and look down at what he was doing. “Don’t you dare move,” he said, and flicked him. “Typical! I bet you’d be just like this with him, trying to get loose to play with yourself, begging him to _please_ let you come. I bet he’d be furious.”

“I think he’d punish me like you do,” Bucky said. “I mean—throw me in the floor and kick me and spit on me—”

“Oh yeah? I punish you like that? Buck, stop moving your hips or you’re gonna get it. I’m serious.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, with a soft sigh. “With your shoes on. You punish me all the time for being perverted.”

Steve pulled back to kiss him on the cheek again. It seemed like that was okay.

“I also think,” Bucky said, and drew a long breath.

“Tell me right this instant.” Steve pinched his hip.

“Ow! I think when I’m blowing him, I’d probably be humping his leg. I wouldn’t mean to, I’d just get excited. I’d want to come so much that I’d start begging around his cock in my mouth, but he’d never let me.”

“Of course he wouldn’t,” Steve said. “You don’t deserve that at all, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” Bucky said. He squeaked—a new noise—when Steve dug his fingers into his hips.

“You’re just a _mouth_ to him. You’d just be a—” Steve wanted to say whatever word Bucky had in his head, so he cheated: “What are you? What would you be for him?”

“A hole,” Bucky said.

“Yeah. A hole. And holes don’t get to come.”

“Right.”

“Say it.” Holding Bucky like this, wrapping around him and whispering in his ear, Steve felt like he was operating a puppet. Bucky had the jerky moves of one, for sure; he lurched whenever Steve squeezed him or said anything especially apt. “Go on,” Steve said, stroking his hips as Bucky said, haltingly, “Holes don’t. Get to come.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. His brain was scrambled for a minute; leaning on Bucky’s shoulder, catching his breath, he reached down and stroked his cock with one finger.

“Steve,” Bucky whined.

“Yeah, what?” Steve said. “You want something?”

“Please let me touch myself,” Bucky said. His voice was so soft and blurred sounding, like he was out of breath.

“I just don’t know,” Steve said. “Why would the bath guy let that happen? Wait, I have an idea.” He let go of Bucky’s hips and brought his hands back to hold each of Bucky’s wrists individually. “I think you’d get loose sometimes. Desperate boy like you. I think you’d get one of your hands free, I think you’d—you’d know it’s wrong, but you’d still _need_ it.” He moved Bucky’s right hand to hover above his crotch. Bucky, being his perfect self, didn’t try to move it any further. “You want it, right? You can’t resist, can you?”

“Steve,” Bucky said. “ _Please_.”

Steve let go of his hand. “Go on,” he said. “Get off before he comes back and finds you. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “Thank you.” He gave himself a few slow strokes, like he couldn’t believe it was finally happening; then he immediately sped up, jerking himself so rough and fast it looked like he could hurt himself. Steve would have been afraid to handle him like that.

He put his face in between Bucky’s shoulder blades, feeling the rhythm. When Bucky made soft noises Steve could not just hear them but feel them. “I can’t look at you. You disgust me,” he mumbled tenderly.

“Thank you,” Bucky said. He tensed up, saying all in a rush, “Thank you, Steve, thank you for letting me, thank you so much, _thank you_ ”—the words ran together to the point that Steve couldn’t understand him. It was amazing to feel it in Bucky’s body; Steve didn’t think he’d ever enjoyed coming as much as he did feeling Bucky come.

Bucky slumped. He was quiet for a moment, catching his breath. Then he said again, “Thank you. Thank you, Steve,” which wasn’t such a bad thing, but Steve couldn’t help wanting to see him.

“Turn around,” he said, and Bucky turned himself around on his knees, grinning at Steve as they came face to face. “Your shirt’s messy,” Steve said.

“That’ll happen,” Bucky said. “Unless you want me to say I’m sorry.”

“Sure,” Steve said.

He examined Bucky’s cock; it looked slimy, tender and helpless. Steve decided he really liked that. Between the two of them they got Bucky’s shirt off and Steve carefully wiped him clean, watching Bucky’s face as he said, “Sorry, Steve. I guess I’m just a pervert with no self-control. My abominable desires got the best of me once again.”

“Abominable, huh,” Steve said. He put down the wadded-up shirt and pulled up Bucky’s pants; as he did the belt up he asked, “But aren’t you going to apologize for dragging me into this? You know I’d never have thought of anything like this without you.”

He was watching Bucky even more carefully, about to leap in and soothe him if the joke went too far. Because maybe Bucky still thought that. But instead Bucky grinned even bigger and said, “Right. Poor Steve. This was awful for you,” and Steve didn’t mean to but he kissed him on the mouth, loudly, and shoved him and said, “On your back. Now.”

He got on his hands and knees, holding himself over Bucky, looking down at him. Then he swarmed him; he hardly knew what was happening but he was kissing Bucky’s mouth, kissing his ears and neck with no finesse, just running his open mouth over him. It didn’t matter if it was uncomfortable for Bucky to have spit on his face, Steve thought—and when he thought that, he couldn’t bear not to pull back, look Bucky in the eye clearly, and spit on his cheek. Bucky shivered and showed his teeth at that and Steve wiped the spit along his cheek a little and smoothed Bucky’s hair back along his perfect forehead. His fingers were hard on Bucky’s skin. He could feel that, the firmness he could touch Bucky with, and all the while it was streaming through him: _mine, you’re mine, I can do whatever I want to you_ ; it was the warmest feeling he’d ever felt. He felt like his smile was breaking out of his face, like his eyes could pop out of his head from the wonderful picture of Bucky lying under him.

Bucky was looking a little startled, but muzzily so. He lay there surveying Steve.

“Is it—” Steve said. He drew his hand back, putting it on the floor. Maybe Bucky didn’t want to be kissed after, if he wanted to feel like he wasn’t cared about.

“No, no,” Bucky said. Watching Steve, he gingerly took Steve’s hand, brought it to his mouth, and kissed it. He released it but Steve kept it where it was, pretty much, laying it against Bucky’s throat. “It’s good,” Bucky said. His head lolled back a little and he said, “You really like this, don’t you? You like it as much as I do.”

“I guess,” Steve said. Some of the warmth and freedom inside him stilled a bit. Saying how he felt didn’t seem right; it was rolling on his back, showing his weakness, like he’d always done.

“Aw, Steve,” Bucky said. “I saw you too, you know.” He ducked his head to kiss Steve’s hand again. “When I was looking up at you, you looked so happy. It wasn’t my imagination. I’m not making you do anything, am I?” He tipped his head back again, like the floor was a featherbed.

Well, Steve could live with admitting it. “No,” he said. “It’s real. I—I enjoy it.”

Bucky laughed. “You don’t have to say it. I know you don’t like to. It’s just good to know you’re not doing something you don’t want to do, just for me.”

“For _you_?” Steve said, without thinking about it. This kind of bullshitting now felt like breathing. “Nothing’s ever for _you_ ,” he said, rubbing Bucky’s face with his fist. “Nobody’s thinking about you. Nothing’s about what _you_ want. Is there somebody down here on the floor? I didn’t notice. I thought I was just laying on top of an old rug that needs to be thrown out.” Bucky laughed wheezily and lifted his head so he could lick Steve’s fist. Steve moved it away, grabbing Bucky’s hair, and leaned over to kiss him. “Worn-out, dirty, _disgusting_ rug,” he added, and Bucky laughed again.

Everything got dreamy and fuzzy for a minute; Steve pressed against Bucky, kissing his face, biting his ear gently to make him moan, and pulling back to spit on him again. Oh, Steve _loved_ that, treating him like that, and Bucky just took it, and Steve felt like he was being hit by lightning all over his body—

He stopped. That was—something; he was close to coming. It was going to happen if he didn’t stop rubbing against Bucky. He pulled back, resting his weight on his arms, his palms splayed on either side of Bucky’s shoulders.

Bucky was watching him keenly. “Is there something you want, Steve? Is there anything I can—”

“I don’t need to get off,” Steve said, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But—I can feel you,” Bucky said. He flicked his eyes down.

“I don’t want to,” Steve said. “Really.” He didn’t have all the words but he knew that he didn’t want to take his clothes off, and if it happened with them on he’d want to go change, and he didn’t want to leave Bucky for long enough to do that. He wanted to get his fill of looking at and touching him, however long it took until he was done; and if he wanted to get off, later, he could just think back on this.

“Okay,” Bucky said.

But he looked a little worried, and Steve wasn’t sure how to make him understand that there was nothing bad about it. “I just don’t want to. Maybe someday”—but then he didn’t want to say that, even though maybe someday was true—“but maybe never. I might just never want to.”

Miraculously, Bucky nodded. His face cleared. “Yeah, it kind of makes sense with how you are.”

“Good,” Steve said.

“It’s good for me no matter what,” Bucky said. “It’s not like being told no isn’t a lot of fun.” He looked worried again. “Which is to say, I mean—it’s not only okay because I like it, of course.”

“Oh, come on,” Steve said. He put his head down to kiss Bucky’s cheek and then kept his face down there, kissing him again and again, rubbing his forehead into Bucky’s face. “You won’t shut up about that. Hey,” he said impulsively, watching Bucky closely to make sure he got the point, “Do you want to? Do you wish I’d let you get me off?”

Bucky smiled. “I see,” he said. “Is this like when I start crawling into your bed and trying to give you suckjobs, and you have to shove me off onto the floor?”

“Yes,” Steve said. For a second he didn’t hold himself up; he laid down on Bucky, cuddling his head into Bucky’s neck. He kissed him there. “You never stop wanting it, you sick freak. You just want your mouth full of cock forever, don’t you? So you can’t breathe?”

Then he had to sit up, because he wasn’t going to be able to keep from grinding on Bucky’s stomach. It turned out everyone had a breaking point, even him. He scooted backwards until he was sitting a few feet from Bucky’s head. Bucky politely didn’t comment and just said helpful things like, “Yes, Steve, I need it in my mouth. I’m sorry. I know it’s disgusting.”

“Roll over on your stomach,” Steve said. “Look at me.” He sat with his legs crossed, trying to feel calm and peaceful; honestly, even his uncharacteristic hardness didn’t bother him too much. It was something notable, something he’d deal with later, but it couldn’t be less important compared to paying attention to Bucky and tormenting him. He needed a clear head for that.

Well, not _extremely_ clear—that just wasn’t possible—but as clear as it could be.

“Ask me to use you, and ask to touch me,” he said. It didn’t seem likely Bucky was hard again, but it must work on a few levels for him, like it did for Steve. He lay there gazing at Steve, his eyes soft and open looking. Bucky was always so _open_ , Steve thought with startling intensity—it wasn’t a new thought, but it was somehow bigger and more important than it had ever been before. Bucky was very different from Steve, but the way he was was perfect. It was just right.

“Please, Steve,” Bucky began—not hesitantly, just slowly and carefully, because he knew Steve was ramping up to something. “Would you let me suck your dick?”

“No,” Steve said, nodding at him to go on.

“Please, Steve. I’d do a really good job and I’d let you do anything you wanted. You could choke me with it—you could kick me. _Please_ kick me.”

Steve steadied himself. “I _know_ I can do anything I want to you, you pathetic freak. But I don’t want to stick my dick in your disgusting mouth. You’ve probably got the clap. And—and I guess you probably want me to fuck your ass, right?”

Bucky’s eyebrows shot up, but he caught up with Steve. “I, um—yeah, I do, please. You wouldn’t have to be careful—you could really hurt me—”

“Of course I wouldn’t be careful,” Steve snarled. “Why would anyone ever be careful with you?”

“No one would, I’m _trash_ ,” Bucky said—and then, obviously a getting a burst of inspiration—“I’m just a worm. Please, Steve, you could do it with me lying on the floor like this—you could climb on top of me and hurt me as much as you want, and it wouldn’t matter. Crush your worm into the floor. You’d love it! Please, I just need something in me—”

“Give me a sec,” Steve said. He was surprised how much the image affected him, but now wasn’t the time. He’d have to preserve it for later. “Stop smiling, queer,” he said, because Bucky was looking really pleased.

“Sorry,” Bucky said. He wasn’t all that convincing, but he did at least arrange his face to look serious and respectful. He propped his chin on his elbows and waited.

In a minute, Steve said, “Now ask to touch me.”

“Sure,” Bucky said. “Look, I understand that I’m too dirty for you to put it in my ass or my mouth—I mean, practically everyone’s been there. But I need to be useful to you, so _please_ let me jerk you off. I’m really—”

“No,” Steve said. “Not that. The other stuff.” When Bucky looked blank, he explained: “Just ask to put your arm around me or—stuff like that. The way this all started.”

He felt a little nervous, since he didn’t know quite why he wanted to say it. He didn’t know which one of them it was for. But Bucky nodded again and said carefully, “Let me put my arm around you, Steve. Let me hug you.”

“ _No_ ,” Steve said sharply. “You think I want your disgusting hands all over me? You’d probably be getting off on it.”

“I wouldn’t, Steve, I promise,” Bucky said. “I just want to touch you. Please.”

“No! Why would you ask me that? Ask me again.”

“Please, Steve,” Bucky said, inclining his head toward Steve as much as he could. “Even if—look, okay, if I can’t do that—just let me sit next to you. Just let me stand behind you and look at what you’re drawing. Please just let me.”

“Absolutely not. You think I want your disgusting eyes looking at my work? You’d probably get off on it—thinking about being fucked by a giraffe or something.”

Bucky laughed so hard that he couldn’t hold his head up. He just lay on his face. To his credit, when he was done laughing he lifted his head up and said, “Please, Steve, just let me—touch you, be close to you. _Anything_. Even if it’s awful for me—just let me, _please_ , I really want to.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter what you want,” Steve said gleefully. “It matters what I want. Why don’t you repeat that for me?” He scooted closer to Bucky, so he could grab his hair and use it to tilt his head back. “Go ahead, say it. Who’s in charge here?”

“You are,” Bucky said. Steve wasn’t sure if he was a great actor or it was the pain, but any trace of laughter was gone and he looked serious in a scared, meek kind of way. He looked fantastic. “You’re in charge, Steve, and—ow!—it doesn’t matter what I want or how much I like you. You make the decisions.”

“That’s right,” Steve said. He let go of Bucky’s hair so he could cradle his face between his hands. “You like me, huh?”

“If it’s okay to say that.”

“It’s okay,” Steve said. “Just as long as you know you don’t get anything back for it.”

“I know, Steve. I know,” Bucky said. His voice was soft and his eyes were big and round and perfectly distressed. Steve kind of wanted Bucky to suck on his fingers again, which would ruin the story of not letting Bucky touch him—but then again, it didn’t really matter. He could change his mind one way and then change it back again, later; he had all the time in the world to say no.

**Author's Note:**

> Re: homophobia, the following things happen:
> 
> 1)Bucky shares his fantasy of a straight man calling him a “queer” and telling him that “queers” are only good for providing sexual gratification to ”real men,” being degraded and treated violently and impersonally.
> 
> 2)At this point, Steve adds “queer” to the array of insults he calls Bucky when playing with him.
> 
> 3)Steve later shares his fantasy of Bucky being so desperate to blow Steve that he tries to blow Steve while Steve is asleep, at which point Steve would throw him to the floor and beat him. Steve makes dehumanizing comments about “queers” as part of the story.
> 
> Emotionally, this is a way that they explore their mutual anxieties about the differences between them—Bucky dates men and is fully aware of his sexuality and kinks, while Steve is inexperienced, doesn’t like to be touched, and is still figuring out what he does like—and show their acceptance of these differences. Even though Steve isn’t sure of his own sexuality, he's never had a problem with Bucky being gay.
> 
> Fun fact: the usage of “queer” as a slur is historically inaccurate, but it gets the job done!


End file.
